Contagion

The switch

2007-11-12T21:32:00.001-08:00

So I am switching blog platforms again. I'm giving wordpress a shot because it's got a few more organizational benefits to it that blogger doesn't have. So if you read this blog, you will have to now check this one out http://danrichardson.wordpress.com/

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Factor #1...

2007-11-12T08:40:00.001-08:00

...God.

The first thing that has led TXC to be where we are after 10 months is undeniably God.

If it weren't for God giving us a dream to plant TXC, it wouldn't have happened. At least, not the way it has. We would probably still be sitting in the nursery of our sending church trying to muster up the courage to step outside! It's the confidence that God has given us this dream that enables us to boldly move ahead.

I still remember the day that this dream to plant a church consumed me as if a tidal wave had just dropped on top of me. I started writing frantically. I went through all the appropriate channels to make sure I wasn't being rebellious (because I was at a church at the time). After making sure I wasn't out of line, everything started falling in place. The preferred ethos (culture) of TXC came to me like I had been thinking about it forever.

One thing that was already set was the name: The CrossCurrent - where life is meant to be lived. God obviously knew what was coming because I had written that down quite a while before, not even knowing I would one day plant a church with that name.

Everything lined up in a way that can only be explained as God. Everyday, I felt this burning inside of me - knowing that God was behind this dream all the way. It was the scariest thing that I had ever attempted to do. I had no idea what the outcome would be. All I knew was that if I didn't plant this church, I would feel as if I was disobeying God. His call inside of me was absolutely undeniable. I couldn't even think of wanting to anything else with my life. God had totally ransacked any other dreams that I had and replaced them with TXC. I knew that this was what I was created to do and was ready to fully jump into the unknown.

And here we are - still green and naive - not really knowing what the heck we are doing. Still taking risks. But most importantly, still listening to where God want to lead us. I think one of the most important "skills" that a church planter can have is the ability to listen to the voice of God and then obey, no matter what the consequences will be.

For instance, God has called us to reconnect people to Jesus and in doing this, we aren't trying to connect with people who are already Christians. It's quite possible that some of our methods won't be approved by the average church going Christian (Someone recently told one of our TXCers that our church is "damned". Nice. Others loathe the fact that we meet in a movie theatre where the devil lives). But that's okay! Because they are already connected to Jesus...buddy down the street isn't!. We don't intentionally try to tick of religious people, but if they get offended by us intentionally trying reconnect people to Jesus, then that is something that we are willing to sacrifice. If we are hated by religious people and loved by those far from God, then we are happy.

We will keep on listening to what God says and obediently following Him. It scares the snot out of me at the best of times...but quite frankly...I can't imagine living my life any other way!

Factor #2 coming tomorrow...

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Living the dream?

2007-11-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

This week I went out for coffee with one of my mentors who has known me since I was in diapers. He is now on staff at one of Bible Colleges in town but previously was in Ministry for 20+ years. About half of those years were as a Senior Pastor.

We were talking about TXC and how things seem to be progressing at a rate that sometimes freaks me right out. He then said something that I thought was peculiar. He was talking to someone else and mentioned to them that I'm "living every church planter's dream". While I got what he was saying, I certainly don't feel like we've even come close to what God has in store for TXC. However, I don't want to discredit what God has done in our short history. He has definitely shown us favor, especially with those who don't go to church.

So in light of this, throughout next week I am going to attempt to flesh out what I believe are the elements of TXC that have enabled us to get to where we are today as a 10 month old church.

I was thinking the other day that I want to attempt to make blogging more of a regular practice in my life. Not so that people will read my blog (I know the 3 of you that read it will keep reading it :) but so that I can start to get out of me some of the things inside. I feel like I've been just harping on the same things lately and have wanted to start systematically blogging. So this will be my first attempt. I'm going to try and think of 5 things that I believe have been vital to keep TXC moving forward. Again, this is more for me than anyone else but if you're interested, it'll be here for you to read as well!

Blog Quote of the Week

2007-11-06T15:59:00.001-08:00

"A focus on self-preservation is the greatest limitation on the momentum of a movement."Steven Furtick.

Well, I've never been one to come up with amazing one liners that make everyone's jaw drop...but obviously this guy is!

As a disciple,husband,father and pastor, I never want to get caught in the place of self preservation. The place where I'm just trying to survive. I'm not growing. I'm not risking. I'm not investing in the future. I'm not even looking into the future...just the here and now. I don't want to go there.

As a church, I never want us to go there either. The place where we just try and preserve what we've got. Where we don't take "tipping point" risks...the ones where if we fail, we may look like complete losers and possibly feel the burn...but if we succeed, life will never be the same. Where we are just trying to keep the Christians happy so they don't leave.

I could go on and on. It's good to make sure you don't die...don't get me wrong. But trying to not die by sitting there, doing nothing? Sounds like death is just around the corner...

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Post Sunday passout thoughts...

2007-11-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

I had someone taken aback today at how young I was for being a lead pastor. I just laughed. I agree! The only reason I can have confidence to lead this church is because I know without any doubt that this is God's dream. If it was mine, I probably would have quit by now because I would have second guessed myself way too many times.

This same person made the assumption that our church was full of mainly youth. I too thought this would be who we would mainly connect with but I have been proven wrong! We don't have a main demographic anymore. We have teens, young adults, young marrieds, young families, mature families with teens, divorcees, divorced and remarried, empty nesters, grandparents and I'm sure there are more I'm missing. I honestly can't believe it because we are just a bunch of rag tag followers of Jesus that are simply tired of playing church games...it seems that more people are into that than I originally thought!

This same person also made the comment that her son (who was with her) was sick of lame Christian music. This kind of put me on the spot so I said that I couldn't promise her that our music wouldn't suck but that we try our best. I followed the son out of the auditorium afterwards (like a good stalker-pastor does) and asked him "So, is our music better than crappy Christian radio stations?" And with an emphatic "Totally!", he informed me how much he liked it. Kudo's to dave and the guys! By the way, the sound mix rocked today...lawrence is a machine!

We were in our second week of our "Poison" series today and we addressed the issue of Blame by looking at the phrase "It wasn't me!" I had a feeling that this would strike a nerve in people and my feeling was right. We all love to live in a world of blame where it's never our fault for anything. It originated with Adam and Eve (Adam blaming God for giving him a woman that would lead him to sin!) and then we looked at Saul and how he blamed David for his life falling apart when, in reality, Saul was at fault because he had previously disobeyed one of God's strict commands.

The main point/question was" Is it possible that our lives are screwed up not because of what the other person has done to us, but because our reaction to what they've done is wrong and it's dictating how our lives are being lived?"

We had our highest attended Sunday yet today. People are talking like crazy. We rarely ever tell people to invite their friends to a worship gathering. However, we DO want them to invite their friends. Our goal is to give people the confident to invite their friends without any fear that it's gonna suck. That is happening and every week we see more and more new faces.

You never know...we just may be launching our next location or planting our first church sooner than planned!

De-progamming old habits

2007-11-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Last week I went out for lunch with someone had absolutely no church background whatsoever. They just recently started coming to our church and as I talked with them, I had a very frustrating reality hit me: I have no idea how to talk in a way that doesn't confuse people when it comes to matters of God.

They absolutely love TXC and can't believe how we are turning the stereotypical view of church and Christians on it's head. They also told me that they weren't a Christian and have never really had any need for religion.

As we talked, they asked some questions about how and why we started the church and that's where my words started to lock up. What really got me was that I knew this person had absolutely no frame of reference when it came to God. They said they might remember going to church once when they were almost too little to remember. My first thought as a response is "God told me to do it". But what I've been trying to do is approach the conversation from the other person's perspective. Imagine barely remembering going to church as a kid, having no real need for God and hearing someone say "God told me to do it. He changed my heart. The Holy Spirit spoke to me." Whaaa?! It's just weird.

Now I know those are the "right" answers, but I think that I've/we've been too quick to just assume people know what we're talking about. We throw words and phrases around like they're candy and assume that everyone is on the same page. Maybe one day, those kinds of descriptions will make sense to them but right now - when the horse isn't even out of the gate yet - it's just ridiculous to expect them to understand. I've been so ingrained with a set way of thinking that it is hard to deprogram myself.

I think this is why so many Christians stick within their Christian bubbles - because they are scared spitless. Primarily of looking stupid. Cause when it comes time to talk, alot of times the most natural thing to come out is the most unnatural language for someone who doesn't claim to follow Jesus to understand.

But that doesn't excuse me from establishing friendships with those who are far from God and like it that way. My ultimate purpose as a follower of Jesus is to reconnect people to Him. And if that means that I look like a bumbling fool as I attempt to speak in a way that makes sense, then that's what I've got to do.

If I'm not willing to do that, why do I call myself a follower of Jesus? Afterall, aren't the people that Jesus went to and made the most sense to the people that knew the least about God?

Just one more...

2007-10-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

Today was awesome. We launched our POISON series off today and I think it was very well recieved. We had various design elements set up around the theatre including "boiling poison" - eery steam and all, a casket (of which I hid in until the beginning of the gathering and came out - scraring the crap out of Donovan who had no idea that I was in it!) and a table set with place setting, POISON and all.

We looked at the phrase "Just one more..." and how our lives revolve around "our" money and that we buy junk just because we have money to buy it. We explored the idea that "our" money is actually God's money and if we were to just switch our mindset, the world could be different. That we are given lots so that we can give lots.

We ended the morning off with a strong challenge and an experiment: Change the phrase "Just one more" to "Not one more" in our lives over the next two weeks. Don't buy anything that is a want and not a need. Save the money you would have spent. Take that money, go out and buy quality non-perishable food items and toys for the Mission Christmas Bureau. Bring it all back on Sunday, Nov.11. And if you aren't into not buy your coffee or renting your movies or going out for dinner, save your reciepts and match what you spend on needless stuff to make someone's Christmas who can't have one like you will, one too remember!

We decided as a church to partner with services that are in our community that are already doing what we have a heart to do. That way we'll multiply our impact and work with the community all in one.

So we'll see how the experiment goes. We're excited to continue on making our core value "Intentional Generosity" a reality throughout the life of the church. It's only the tip of what we want to see happen through our generosity.

Get in the wheelbarrow!

2007-10-24T11:05:00.001-07:00

...was the challenge I issued on Sunday. I told the story of The Great Blondin who was known for tightrope walking across Niagara Falls doing various different things - one of which was pushing a wheelbarrow. Upon coming back to the crowd he asked them if they thought that he could push it across with someone inside. The crowd cheered "We believe you can!"

Then he asked for a volunteer. Silence.

The point: It's easy to believe - it's another thing to step away from the believing crowd and turn your belief into obedient, trustfilled action. It's easy to believe in Jesus. The bible says that even the demons believe that. It's another thing to get in the wheelbarrow and trust him with your life.

It's so easy to just go to church, pray before you eat, dress right, talk right, read your Bible,etc and not be actually following Jesus.

We are entering into a new season of TXC where we will all have to make the decision of what we are going to do. Are we going to go through the motions or are we actually going to be followers of Jesus? EVERYTHING we do is about reconnecting people to Jesus and we are going to be stepping out onto the tight rope. We are going to see a revolution take place that is much bigger than our feeble minds can even imagine right now.

It's time to get in the wheelbarrow. It may mean leaving behind a reputation, friends, a job, a lifestyle or a myriad of other things. It will mean taking a huge risk of stepping away from the "just believe" crowd. It's not easy. It can be scary.

It's where life is meant to be lived!

The well is dry

2007-10-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

To the faithful few that read this blog...sorry for the lack of posts. My head is quite set in a space of dreaming for the future and it just seems that I can't really think of anything to blog except the same stuff over and over. And I find it redundant to write a post about what I spoke about on Sunday. So I'm just gonna wait until something fires up and then I'll post again.

Moving along

2007-10-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

We finished up the series "Finding God on your Ipod" today and it was a blast. The band rocked out 5 current songs that most people would know and we took the theme from each song and explored how God is speaking to us through it. We capped off the series with surprising everyone by giving away an ipod. It was a lot of fun. I was going to take pictures of our giant 8 foot ipods but I totally forgot.

I also totally forgot to take a picture of the poison viles we made for our series that starts next Sunday. We're pretty amped about what God is going to do through it. We have a couple ads in the paper as well. Check out the series description at www.isitinu.org.

I continue to be blown away by how God can use a bunch of rookies that really don't know what we are doing to help in God's mission of reconnecting people to Himself. As much as it may look like we've got it together, we really don't. We wake up some days wondering what on earth we are gonna do? The only conclusion we can come to is to keep moving forward. God led us this far and we seriously believe that he is taking us some place that we haven't even dreamed of yet. That's crazy to me because some of the things that we see in our future are so big that we don't have a clue how it's going to happen.

But I'm in...no matter what the future holds and how we get there.

One lucky guy

2007-10-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

WARNING! Biased, one sided, pride filled post below.

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I haven't blogged for around a week so I've got all this stuff coming out today...figured I'd just keep letting it rip.

Today I was just thinking about how much I have to be thankful for. At the very top of the list is my wife and kids.

I can't believe why I get to spend my life with the most amazing woman any man could have ever gotten to marry. I say this all the time - I'm not an easy person to live with. I'm grouchy in the morning (some would argue all the time - it's a matter of perspective :) and I can get really snappy when I'm hungry. And through all that, she remains calm and collected - firmly putting me in my place when I'm out of line.

She is a lead pastor's dream come true. I have purposely protected her from being to involved in TXC because I need her by my side. Starting and leading a church is something that a lot of people will never understand and to do it alone would be suicide. Sometimes it's just the simplest thing she can say that picks me up and brings a fresh perspective.

And on top of that, she is H-O-T. I can honestly say that she is more beautiful than the day we met. Call me prideful or whatever you want, but walking down the road, holding her hand, all I can think is "I'm the luckiest guy alive". She definitely makes me proud.

And then there's my kids. They are just so amazing. I haven't seen cuter kids - sorry everyone else in the world with kids :) Sure, they drive me nuts at the best of times, but they are a daddy's dream. I see both of them, playing on the floor together right now, and I can't help but think that they're not going to be in my house for much longer - even though they're only 3 and 1 right now. Time goes by so fast and I need to take advantage of every second I have with them.
On that note...I'm going to go play.

POISON

2007-10-14T17:10:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I had this crazy idea to do this series called "Poison" that focused on some of the things that we have inside of us that are killing us. So we stuck it down on paper and then before we knew it, it was right around the corner. It's now two weeks away and we're stoked!

We decided that we wanted to make invites for this series and we wanted them to be unique. We finally settled on something and weren't sure what the response would be from the people in our church. Maybe they would think it was cheesy. Maybe they would think it was dark and sadistic (with the picture of a skull as part of the series graphic). Maybe it would be a hit.

Today we unveiled what was going to be happening and in preparation for it, we made viles of green "poison" with labels that had the series title and the web domain www.isitinu.org (go there to see what the series is all about) - that's it. The point is to give these to your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers as an invite to TXC. Maybe we just slip them in their bags anonymously. Maybe we just unscrew it and randomly dump it on their food.

Just as a side, I was in a golf tournament yesterday and in the "goodie" bags we were allowed to stick a vile of "poison" in each one. Because there is no reference to our church or anything, it was hilarious to see peoples' reactions. One lady unscrewed the top and smelled it. She was asking her friends if they were supposed to drink it or not. For her sake...I hope she didn't. :)

Anyways, continuing on, we told everyone about the viles and didn't know if they would take them or not. And to our surprise, people came up to the table and grabbed them! People were walking out with their hands full, ready to give these viles out.

On top of that, we are going to be sticking two ads in the mission city record that direct people to the site as well.

I don't know what's going to happen because of this. All I know is that the only reason we do this is to reconnect more people to Jesus. We have been seeing some incredible things happen in the last few weeks, from the most unlikely people deciding to follow Jesus to having the most people we've had at one of our gatherings today, it just feels like we are on the verge of something.

God's doing some crazy things through some unlikely people and wherever we end up, the only answer to what was behind it all is Him

Bigger or better

2007-10-14T16:32:00.001-07:00

When I was a youth pastor, the one game I always hated playing was bigger or better. You start with a tooth pick or something and you to some random person's house and you try and trade up by getting something bigger or better than you're tooth pick. Sounds all fun and great right now, but wait until you get to the end and you've got all these youth bringing old rundown cars, microwaves and other beat up pieces of furniture back to the church. Guess who gets to throw it all out? Yes...that's right...the good 'ol youth pastor! For me, bigger or better was bad.

However, as I reflected on this game and my "fond" memories of it, I realized that maybe there was some good that came out of it.

When we were praying this morning before our Sunday morning gathering, I decided to change the way I will sometimes pray. It's the prayer that has a bit of a "If that's what you want to do...then we're happy with that" feel to it and lately, that's been making me sick. It's the prayer that says "God, if just one person's life has been changed in some small way, then this was all worth it."

So I changed it. Actually, it's not necessarily that my prayer changed as much as my heart and perspective changed.

Instead of adding the disclaimer and having that "humble" approach, I've had this new surge of faith to believe that if I'm going to pray and if I'm going to believe God for something, it needs to be HUGE!

Now, don't get me wrong. One person's life being changed IS worth it. But my question is do we only have one person's life change because that's all we're willing to believe that God will do. It's almost like we're afraid to believe that God will do more so we don't pursue more for fear of looking really stupid.

I don't care anymore. I know I'm supposed to care and it's bad to say that, but I really don't. I am sensitive to playing the numbers game and basing our "success" off of how many people are coming and all that. But at the same time, changed lives is what we are all about.

I'm not satisfied to see the same group of people connected to TXC day in day out. What that speaks to me is that we aren't growing as people. I don't really get how an itty bitty church can justify staying small and spouting "But we're healthy!"

Healthy Christians are all about reconnecting people to Jesus. If that's not happening, there is no health. It's stagnant. It's stale. It's lifeless. It's inward focused. It's growth is stunted. It's people are disuillusioned to think they are healthy.

Since the outset of TXC, we have pushed very hard to not become THAT church. (none in particular...just with those characteristics) However, it's so easy to go there. It's so easy to slow down, especially in the stage of our journey that our church is in. We are that nice and comfy-cozy size where it's still possible to know everyone.

We won't be that church. We will dream bigger! We will take bigger risks. We'll attempt things that only crazy people attempt. And all because of this quote that I've lived by since I realized I was a crazy man and was going to attempt to plant a church in Mission:

"Attempt things so huge that they doomed for failure unless God steps in."

So we will attempt to reconnect more people to Jesus than we are right now. We will believe God that he will change just more than 1 person's life. We will attempt things that WILL fail...unless God saves us from falling flat on our face.

Yes, I agree, we're crazy and off our rocker.

I couldn't imagine it any other way!

Untouched

2007-10-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

“If the Gospel isn’t touching others, it hasn’t touched you.” —Curry R. Blake

That's a bold quote! What do you think? Is it true?

The gospel...no longer foolishness!

2007-10-02T15:16:00.002-07:00

God continues to blow me away with what he can do in spite of who we are as screwed up humans. I've said before that when we started TXC, the one constant that would always remain was Jesus. Our whole goal is to reconnect people to Jesus. Every week we call people to His standard. There have been some that don't like that and that's okay. We will NEVER change this.

Today I got a message from someone who's been coming to our church for about 2 months. When they showed up, they really had no clue who Jesus was and I don't think had ever been to church. There were exploring spirituality because they had recently had some crazy experiences and realized that there was more than just the natural. They were exploring buddhism, taoism and other religions, along with Christianity.

From my perspective, this was my redemption. In the first few months of being an "official" church, I made some stupid mistakes regarding people and rushing them to follow Jesus as quickly as possible. I think it was a pride thing - a sense of accomplishment that I was doing what I was supposed to do. So this time, I was determined not to screw it up by getting in God's way and trying to manipulate how things shook down.

As questions came up, we tried to answer them as best as we could without going to far. I went over the line a few times by getting too defensive and had to admit that. Here's a question: Why is it that Christians get all worked up when someone claims to not believe what we believe? We have been so ingrained that we are RIGHT and everyone else is WRONG that it has really become a barrier for others to want to follow Jesus. It's not Jesus they are afraid of...it's us!

Anyways, we suggested some books and a version of the Bible for them to read that would make a little more sense. And we prayed like crazy. Because, quite frankly, what I've come to realize is that it's near impossible to prove Jesus to someone. Sure we can prove the facts, but how do you prove experience if they haven't experience him yet?

The Holy Spirit is the one revealed to us who God is. Paul says that the gospel is foolishness to those who don't believe. So why do we try and make it seem like it's not foolishness if Paul himself said that's the way it's gonna be? When we backed off enough for God to speak to this person where they were at on their journey towards Him, that when they heard.

I get the message this morning. This person is freaking out! Why? Because this morning everything just clicked! It all makes sense! Jesus. God. The Holy Spirit. How we can know Him. How our lives are changed! Their life has been changed! They said "I'm in!" I'm not sure about you, but that sound like a decision to follow Jesus?!

And I was freaking out! Because this had nothing to do with what we could have ever said! It was God! And this is what I KNOW that God has told me is going to happen through TXC. And it's happening all around us in unbelievable ways. This is just the beginning for them and there is a long road ahead...welcome to the journey!

This really is only just the beginning! We had an awesome lead team meeting last night and there are some things that are in the works that have potential to impact our community in an amazing way! Hang on!

Why a theatre?

2007-10-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

I couldn't have said it better myself!

"I get to talk to a lot of future church planters and most would prefer to meet in a school to a movie theater. And I’ve heard some planters who meet in a theater but wish they could meet in a school. Let me just say this: That’s crazy. Our church has spent years in a theater and years in a school. And if you’re trying to reach lost people a theater is a better option hands down. Why? Because lost people hang out in movie theaters, they like theaters, they go to theaters. If you meet in one, you are going to them, meeting on their territory. That’s a very good thing. On the other hand, who graduates from High School and thinks, “I hope somehow I get a chance to go back. I just loved going to school so much, I can’t imagine not getting to hang out in a school building again”?"

Read the rest here

Telling a lie with mediocre

2007-10-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

"Mediocre anything... sermon, music, environment, etc... tells a LIE about the quality of the Gospel." J.D. Greer

When I read this something resonated inside of me. The gospel is the most exciting message ever when communicated properly and we will do whatever it takes to communicate that.

People are expecting mediocre; we aren't going to give it to them.

Anything but ordinary

2007-09-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

The other day I said I would post some of the comments we've been getting. These are meant to be more of an encouragement to the people of TXC than anyone else. God really is doing something unique and fresh through TXC. I can't really put my finger on it (obviously "it" is God) because a lot of the time it feels like we're doing the same old thing and nothing out of the ordinary.

These letters are just a snippet of what God is doing and it's anything but ordinary...1 from someone that was not raised as a Christian, the other from someone who's been in church for 20+ years.

(I've removed names but kept everything else as is...)

#1 --

“I came to church with some friends a while ago, and I've been coming back for I guess It's been three weeks now, and, Honestly I've been enjoying it a lot, I feel welcome, and I think that you connect well with everyone, and there's a lot of unity within the church That Is awesome! I always grew up with religion in my home, I've always known a lot about the bible, and my mom would have us study the bible on a regular basis. The problem is that I'd always been taught the bible within a religion that I personally don't feel is right for me. Anyways I feel much better coming to TXC and I love it, and It really is welcoming, I've even invited and spoken about it with my sister, and some friends of mine, THAT'S how comfortable I feel. That's how much I've been enjoying it.

So because I will be there on Sunday... and I plan to come more, and I'm setting very Christian goals for myself weekly, (just things that I've let slip the last year or so that I have been lost and confused in the world), And Because I'm choosing to re-discover Jesus, Hopefully with your help and Through the help of TXC. Thank you.”

She goes on to say in another email…

“I feel like I'm being served a kid's meal, when I'm like a 300 pounds and hungry for more. It's funny how much more i want to know, ive really never felt so moved.”

I love that...a 300lb kid. On to #2...

#2 --

“A Few weeks ago, I decided with my Husband to go and visit your church. I have to admit I was a little sceptical of the whole thing, after all - can God show up in a movie theatre?

I was amazed and excited to have the experience of enjoying Pastor Dan as he spoke on Jonah and the Whale. Wow I loved the idea of a real boat in the service. The message was alive, and it challenged me , motivated me, and I have not forgotten those words - SWALLOWED BY GRACE - what a powerful sermon and to think I still remember it 3 weeks later.

As I sat during the worship time (which consisted of one drummer, a base guitarist and one lead singer with a guitar) I was amazed that the presence of the Holy Spirit was their, in a theatre - wow! it seemed a little weird, As you can imagine, I am use to a church building, pews and all, but this was a totally out of the box experience.

I want to thank all of you who have worked so hard to get this ministry up and running, I am sure that God is thrilled with you all, keep at it, this is the place and God is so with you.

Hey and the added bonus, Thanks for the Cinema Ticket. Blessings to you All"

This is what it all about! It really does blow my mind that, in light of who we are, God is rocking people's worlds.

And the stories continue...

My "amazing message"...hijacked

2007-09-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

My previous pastor's gave me some wisdom over the years and one of those pieces of advice was to never let someone vent at you before you preached. Well today I had that experience but it wasn't something I could avoid.

Every Sunday we meet in SilverCity Mission to have our Sunday worship gatherings. As you can imagine, that sucker's a beast and someone's gotta clean it. The company that cleans it works extremely hard to get it cleaned for us but over the last few weeks we've been having some altercations with our paths crossing at the wrong time and things said that were taken way out of context.

This morning it all came to a head.

Last week I emailed the theatre and told them what was going on and requested that the cleaning crew be out by 9. I knew I could potentially stir the pot and open a can of worms and sure enough, it opened this morning...just what I needed.

So the manager comes to me and tells me that we can't use the right wing where we usually have UpStream Kids and that we just need to stay away from each other (the janitors and us). So as you can imagine, a wrench got thrown in to the morning at that point and I was set off. It just screwed my whole line of thought up completely.

The head janitor came and talked with me and we ended up getting things smoothed out to a certain degree but I was still off.

Needless to say, when it was my time to get up and speak, I felt like I was in a padded room all by myself. It had nothing to do with the people that were there, it had to do with the fact that I was distracted. It's hard to explain and only those that do any sort of speaking know that focus is everything, especially when you are trying to speak from memory. There are just some days when things flow out of me so smoothly and then there are days like today when I feel like I'm dragging it out and just slapping it on the table.

But you know what is interesting about this? As I sit here, I'm reminded of the fact that we were talking about the fact that God works best in weakness. Interesting. Maybe if I'm always trying to serve a gourmet meal with my words, God doesn't have as much opportunity to show himself strong.

This is verified by the stories I heard from people after the gathering that said that they feel like TXC is helping to resuscitate their faith and that God really spoke to them in the gathering. I'm trying to learn to not have a false humility by saying "Dude it wasn't me...trust me". I'm trying to just say a simple "Thank you". I never said it but it definitely wasn't me today. It never is but today I was just reminded even more that I really don't know what I'm doing and that what happens through TXC is definitely not a reflection of how cool I am or how skilled I am. The day I start thinking I'm something special is the day that TXC starts to crumble.

Don't pet the squirrel!

2007-09-27T09:54:00.001-07:00

This is too funny! I'm getting a free copy of this book soon and I'll review it here once I'm done.

Discipleship or Evangelistic...

2007-09-27T09:31:00.002-07:00

That's what someone asked me once what our focus was at our Sunday gatherings.

My reply - both!

I'm not sure how you can be one or the other and be a gospel central church.

If you are just discipleship focused, it can turn into a "Feed me!" fest with a bunch of "obese" Christians walking around with all the answers. When a guest visits, everything is over their heads and they don't see how anything applies to them.

If you are just evangelistic, you will end up with a bunch of shallow Christians that don't know the Bible.

Our goal on Sundays is to disciple people to be outward focused with their faith. We want those that follow Jesus to see that their faith is not for them. It's so easy to think this and then do everything we can to feel good about everything in our lives. It just doesn't work that way. Following Jesus is hard at the best of times!

We view our gatherings as a time for equipping missionaries to live in the culture throughout the week. That our faith doesn't end with us...we are supposed to be a catalyst that continues the process.

Does it always work seamlessly? Hardly. But we're determined to be both.

eeny meeny miny.......we pick YOU!

2007-09-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

When we are dreaming for the future of TXC, the people that are at the forefront of our minds are those who are far from God...not the Christians. It's not that we don't think about those who are already following Jesus and contributing to our church...we love them and try our best to invest in them as much as we know how right now. Our goal is to equip those that follow Jesus to be about reconnecting others to Jesus. We aren't Christians to live a fat and happy life with Jesus on our own, taking everything we can for ourselves...our faith isn't private. (I'll post more on this later)

But here's our reasoning...

If some of our methods offend a Christian, they're still going to be a Christian if they leave our church. Now, if we do something that offends a Christian to the point that they are ready to call it quits on God all together, then we need to make it right. We will also try to avoid that at all costs.

However, if our methods offend someone who doesn't follow Jesus, they may never come back. And for us, that is unacceptable. Where the Christian can skip down the street to the next church on the corner, the person who isn't connected to Jesus may never give Him another shot. We aren't going to soften our message just so that people will like us, but we will adapt our methods on a regular basis in order to more effectively reconnect others to Jesus.

So if it comes down to choosing who we focus on, we choose those who aren't connected to Jesus...everytime.

Selling out?

2007-09-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

"In the world of marketing, the church takes one of two stances. It stays away from it totally, or engages in what I would call cheesy church marketing. Bottom line; they’re not very effective.

But why don’t we market? We have the greatest news in the whole world; something everyone needs and everyone should know about. The good news is relevant to everyone’s life, every day. So why don’t we let people know more effectively what we have to offer? There are two reasons why we don’t market. One, we don’t know what promise to make. Two, we don’t know how to make good on the promises we do make." Read the rest here

For what it's worth, we do market ourselves, but we try not to make promises. In the beginning, we were gonna jump on the bandwagon and proclaim "Not your grandma's church" until my friend who isn't a Christian told me that it was lame. In retrospect, I'm not even sure we could make good on that promise just because I have no idea what your grandma's church is like!

Every church markets itself, whether it thinks it does or not. One of the ways this happens is by people talking about your church. What are they saying?

Every week, we understand that people are going to leave and they are going to talk. We don't candy coat anything or tell people that Jesus wants you to have that escalade and feel good about life all the time to manipulate them into telling their friends about this amazing church that just wants me to have the best things in life.

Every week we challenge people to follow Jesus...wherever that may lead with everything that comes along with it. I would expect people to say negative stuff...some do. But for the most part, I hear story after story about people who feel more confident now than they ever have in the past to talk about their faith and tell people where they go to church. In fact, at our All Access night this weekend with our volunteers and leaders, I'll be sharing some of these stories and once I get permission from someone who just sent me one this morning, I'll post it here.

Hating the culture we're trying to reach

2007-09-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

"Given the power of media, becoming conversant with its mixed messages is an essential tool for Christian life. This involves the process of inculturation—discovering where Christ is already active within a given culture. Inculturation has traditionally been about uncovering Christian resonances in faraway places and exotic rituals. Yet the risen Christ sends us out to our media-saturated culture as well, and in it we labor with Christ to expose the signs of God’s saving love already present there. We cannot speak to a culture we do not know or one we despise…we have to learn its language and discover how Christ has already gone ahead of us, inculturated in some of media’s values, stories and style."

As said by Richard Leonard, a Jesuit priest with a PhD in film and theology, in his book Movies that Matter: Reading Film Through the Lens of Faith.

Thoughts?

Getting some action

2007-09-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

"Don’t ever settle for getting someone’s attention. Channel attention into action if you want to change the world." ~ katya

It's so easy to fall into the trap of just getting people's attention. I love our church. I really do. I love the community. I love the creativity. I love the freedom. I love the location. I love the music. I love the lead team I get to work with. I love it all! If we are going to gather together, I believe that to bore people to death with the most exciting message ever is just ridiculous. People can slam the churches that "entertain" all they want but if boredom and being lame is the other choice...I choose the captivating and engaging route everytime.

I was just talking with someone yesterday and they were telling me that they have never felt as confident as they do now in inviting their friends to church. Before they used to be embarassed but now they know their friends will like it. That is always one of our goals - to give people the confidence to invite their friends by making sure what we do at our gatherings doesn't suck.

But if all we are doing is getting people's attention, we aren't doing our job. If people are just saying "Wow...that was fun!" then we are missing the mark. The whole point is reconnecting people to Jesus and I know that doesn't always happen in a moment and so our goal each week is for all of us to take one more step in the direction of Jesus. One of the ways we gauge whether this is happening or not is through the stories we hear. If we're not hearing stories, there is no action taking place. But when you hear story after story of the changes happening in people's lives, it makes you want to get their attention and call them to action even more.

Did I mention I love TXC?

Religious dress code

2007-09-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

"I could literally go on and on…people–it DOES NOT FLIPPIN’ matter what is worn to church…as long as you are there!!! I Samuel 16:7 says that God is looking at the heart…and I honestly believe there are some very well dressed people in churches all over America who are on their way to hell because they are so caught up in looking good and playing the part that they have never trusted Christ with their salvation!!!

It’s time that ~~Christians~~ people that go to church STOPPED this crap! Dressing up does not make you godly…for many it simply means they are good looking hypocrites!!! The REAL question is how is your heart…are you and I doing what Jesus outlined in Matthew 22:36-40? THAT matters!!! (Once again please note they asked Jesus about what was most important…and He never mentioned a dress code!)"

Read the rest of the post here

For what it's worth I was pretty intent on letting people know that it's okay to wear whatever they want to church in the beginning of TXC. I came out of the "If you don't dress right, you don't love Jesus" tradition and it honestly grated on me. So I would rant about that. I totally agree with Perry on this issue and yet, I have no reason to even talk about this because it's an unspoken rule at TXC that it's okay to come however you want (just try to cover up the parts that need to be covered:). We've got people that wear suits and people that wear t-shirts and shorts. I love the fact that it's not a "high end" fashion show each week.

It's a breath of fresh air. We can focus on becoming like Jesus and not worry that we're being judged because we don't dress a certain way. And for the record, I don't own a suit. Actually I do but I'm too fat to fit into it so I'm considering having a burning ceremony sometime soon!

A caffeinated gospel

2007-09-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

I read this over on Tony Morgan's blog and totally agree! Why does Starbucks get to be excellent while the church stays mediocre?

"Ken (who by the way has one of the coolest looking blogs in blogland) passed along an interesting article from a recent issue of Psychology Today. The article talks about the rapid growth of Starbucks and, among other things, attributes that growth to the "Starbucks experience" rather than the coffee. Here are some highlights from the article and the questions and thoughts it raised in my mind:

Vision. "From a base of just 100 stores 15 years ago, Starbucks has grown into a 13,000-strong coffeehouse armada. It operates cafes in all 50 states and in 37 countries... The company now opens more than 2,000 coffeehouses per year, an average of six new stores a day."

The company's current goal is to have 40,000 stores worldwide. Does anyone else read that and think our vision for the Church pales in comparison? We complain about and try to discredit the ministry of churches that are approaching 40,000 people while this company (that's just trying to sell more coffee) is trying to open 40,000 unique locations. Aren't we thinking too small?

Intentionality. "At Starbucks, nothing is accidental. Everything the customer interacts with, from the obsessively monitored store environment down to the white paper cups, is the product of deliberation and psychological research. The coffeehouse as we know it is a calculated creation..."

It ticks me off that Starbucks has demonstrated this much intentionality in selling coffee while the Church embraces a passive (or maybe it's just lazy) approach to spreading the Gospel.

Community. "Starbucks filled America's need for a public gathering spot--...a 'third place' with home and work being place one and two. This became Starbucks' community rallying cry: It wasn't a coffee company, but a place for bringing people together through the social glue of coffee."

Here's an example of a need that people had that could have easily been filled by the Church. Maybe we're too focused on arguing about what we're against instead of being what the Church was intended to be in people's lives.

Atmosphere. Starbucks interviewed coffee drinkers and found that they "talked very little about the coffee itself, but quite a bit about feelings and atmosphere... The coffee wasn't the point--the feel of the place was."

Here's the reality--Starbucks just wants to sell more coffee. But, we don't hear blogging baristas complaining about how Starbucks has watered down the coffee because they're actually paying attention to people's feelings and the atmosphere of their stores.

What if God gifted artists to create an atmosphere for people to be more receptive to hearing the Gospel? What if God created some people with the gift of hospitality to design a welcoming environment for people to hear the Gospel? What if God gifts people and directs them through the Holy Spirit to think about effective building design, sound systems, video capabilities and children's ministry so that more people might hear the Gospel? Is it possible that we're trying to put God in a box by limiting how he chooses to reach people?

I happen to believe God will use methods we've not seen before to reach people who have yet to commit their lives to Christ. As I've read through the Bible again, I'm amazed at the variety of different approaches he used to get people's attention and transform lives. I don't think God's done creating. And, I don't think he's done redeeming people's lives."

God will answer...someday

2007-09-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

Read this over on Jason Boucher's blog today:

"Scripture

Acts 2:16

Observation

Joel prophesied that "In the last days it shall be, God declares..." in approximately the ninth to sixth century. Then there is this moment, on the Day of Pentecost where it comes to pass. Luke wrote this in a letter to his friend Theophilus sometime in A.D. 62-64.

That is a l o n g time from spoken to realized.

Bottom Line: God keeps His word.

Application

Similar to the other day - don't loose faith in the waiting process.

Prayer

Father, I thank you that you are one who keeps His word - even though I may never see the fulfillment in my lifetime. Allow me to dream dreams that exceed the scope of my lifetime. Love, Jason"

I gotta be honest...and this is going to be reveal my evil dark side *shock!* I know this. I know that God keeps his word. I also know that God has spoken very clearly and loudly to me about what he wants to do in Mission. I may have people laugh and mock me when they hear that...."Mission?! Why there?" How do I know? I just know that this is where God has us and it's for something huge. But...what if.

What if...nothing happens in my life time. what if I'm merely a planter and not a harvester? What if I'm here for the next 50 years of my life and I see the city morph into what it will be at that time and I'm still the pastor of TXC (a very old and decrepit pastor that is). But what if this dream that God's put in my heart is for someone else to see come to being...after I die?

Here's the honesty part...my human side says that sucks big time! Because this dream is awesome...I mean it's earth shaking...it's life altering! And to go through my life not seeing that happen...that would just flat out suck.

But I know where that comes from. Part of it comes from my consumeristic mindset of wanting things now...when I want something I can get it in a relatively short period of time. Another part of it comes from me thinking that I'm god over my little universe. (I know...that's hard to believe that I would want to control things in my life...welcome to MY world!) I think that RIGHT NOW is the best time for God to show up. After all, there are lives weighing in the balance...they need him RIGHT NOW! But is this really about lives being changes or is this an egotistical pride based thing where the dream coming to life reflects how great I am and not God?

But here's reality...I'm not God and however much I try and remain in control...it's not really control. It's an illusion. (Ever noticed that you can never feel fully in control?) I'll never know if God is going to cause this dream to become a full reality in my lifetime (just the launch of TXC is the beginning of the dream!) but I can't sit around with that question in the back of my mind. I will live my life as if it is going to happen. I will give everything I've got to see people reconnected to Jesus!

And where it goes from there...that's up to the One who's REALLY in control.

Caught in the crosscurrent...together

2007-09-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

Our UnderCurrent relaunch this Sunday but we cheated and started ours a week early. Reason being, we are watching Survivor. I know...it's pretty spiritual. Chicken farmers, grave diggers, professional wrestlers, lunch ladies with mullets...it's deep. But I'm stoked. There were 7 of us without any pre-sign up and we had a blast. We're having our own mini competition throughout the season and the winning team will get treated to a movie on Bek or I.

I gotta be really honest here. I'm an awkward person. I KNOW! You're shocked! I try to keep it a secret :) But when it comes to a traditional bible study I just can't hide it. Sitting in a circle. Reading a section of Scripture. Then....the part that makes me want to crawl into a hole and not come out..."Soooooooo Hank....what do you think about that? Nothing? Okay then...next." It's at this point where I just start talking and it moves from a bible study to a mini sermon. I just don't do well with it. On top of that, I've found that the most meaningful conversations have come out of having a coffee with a friend with no pre-set plan.

That's why I love our concept of UnderCurrents. It's not new by any means but it just fits who we are. Some go with cells, small groups, g-12, etc...some make it mandatory that they review the sunday message. We just can't mandate a set structure and be true to the culture of our faith community.

So we've got survivor nights, movie discussion nights, bible study, recreation, youth, singing and looking to add some more. I have some ideas but ultimately, Donovan is the point leader for the UnderCurrents.

We are experimenting with the semester system as well. So the present Undercurrents will go until Christmas and end for a few weeks. Then in January some time we will once again relaunch to give new people the chance to join up, for us to launch new Undercurrents and for regulars to switch if they want to. This is an experiment so we're going to test it out and see how it works. But right now it seems like a better option than having a group of people meet together for the next 20 years and have no way for a new person to break in, even if they wanted to. I think with switching it up every few months helps to keep things fresh. It keeps UnderCurrents on our radar all the time and as we will do a big push every few months. Afterall, these are going to be a very strong undercurrent (lame...I know) in our church.

All in all, I'm stoked. I'm looking forward to connecting with people that I haven't had the chance to connect with yet. I'm looking forward to the community that is going to be formed. We see the strong friendships that have formed among the ladies that meet for recreation on Wednesdays...it's just undeniable that this type of community makes it much easier and more fun to navigate through life and the christian faith.

We aren't meant to walk alone.

It's not our mission

2007-09-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

"God's church falters from exhaustion because Christians erroneously think that God has given them a mission to perform in the world. Rather, the God of mission has given His church to the world. It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a church in the world. The church's involvement in mission is its priviledged participation in the actions of the triune God." - Tim Dearborn

It's very easy to get this confused and I think it happens to me all the time. I constantly have to be on guard because this can easily lead to arrogance. God's mission can easily turn into "our" mission. We can easily get a complex and think that we are the ones that are doing the saving. The reality is that God is already at work, bringing people closer to Himself...we just get the privilege to be invited along for the ride.

So, today I choose to be grateful to God for inviting me.

A few interesting leadership insights

2007-09-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

from John Laeger at a Minnesota Wild game:

1. When you make a call, you will be booed and cheered at the same time. Thousands of people will watch as you make the call and they will immediately let you know if they like the call or not. There will be no private decisions when you are a leader. Every decision will be seen and evaluated. Some will love it and some will hate it. Some will even be angry and get up and leave. And when they leave, they will call you all sorts of names. But, you don't make the call based on who will like it or not. You make the call based on playing the game right.

2. There is no Hi-Def, Slo-Mo, Instant Replay from 17 different angles BEFORE you make a call. If there were, you would never make a mistake - right? I have lost count of the decisions I have made in strategy, marketing, staffing, budgeting, and even teaching series that had I knew then what I know now AFTER the decision, I would not have made that decision. When you make the call, you make it on what you see at that moment in time and you make it with confidence.

3. You follow through on your call and then keep going. Regardless of getting booed or cheered, you keep going. You keep focused on the game. You stay doing what you are good at doing. You don't second guess your call in the middle of the game.

4. Decisions are best made when there is wild rock music playing, teeth are getting knocked out, and human bodies are flying and crashing into the wall. Okay, maybe this one doesn't have much of a connection to decision making as a leader - but hey...

It's interesting how it takes a guy who hasn't been to a game since the NorthStars were in town to think of this stuff!

How to catch a shark

2007-09-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

Via Vince Antonucci:

"Imagine a few friends decide they want to go deep sea fishing and catch sharks. These guys go to Wal-Mart, buy some poles, drive down to the marina, pick up some bait, get in their boat, drive out where some other people are fishing, and drop their lures. Fish start biting instantly. By the end of the day these guys catch 92 Grouper, 37 Sea Bass, 11 Tuna and … 2 small Sharks.

By chance, another group of buddies also decide to try and catch some sharks. This group gets together the night before to study up on shark fishing. The next morning they drive to a specialty fishing store and purchase 80lb. class rods with 100 lb. fishing line. They get the right size hooks and a gaff. They also buy a flat of mackerel and some fresh bluefish to use as chum and bait. They go down to the marina, get in their boat, and drive southeast to a pre-determined spot, approximately 30 miles out. This area has a dip in the sea floor and a certain water temperature, both making it a far more likely home for the type of shark they have elected to target. They discovered that different species of shark prefer varying depths of water. On the way out they troll for fresh bluefish, knowing it will be even more effective in attracting sharks. Two of the guys begin preparing their bait and chunks for the chum. When they arrive, they create a big chum slick. They have learned that sharks are smell driven and will follow a slick to its source. Then, knowing that shark fishing is drift fishing, they chart their drift, based on the wind and tide, to follow the edge of the chosen structure below. Next they set their four baits, putting the deepest the furthest away from the boat, keeping their drags very loose so they can hear the clicker start to move. By the end of the day this boat returns to shore with 7 Grouper, 2 Tuna … and 29 Sharks.

Who was more successful? Well, I guess it’s debatable, but if the goal is to catch sharks, I’d say the second group. Sure, they ended the day with 104 more fish, but they had 27 less sharks. If it’s all about “numbers” the first group can brag, but if the deal is really shark fishing, I’d rather be with the second group. In fact, the first group can say they went out shark fishing, but really the truth is … they’re grouper fishermen.

So it’s no surprise where I’m going with this. A lot of us say we’ve heard Jesus’ call and we’re fishing … for lost people. But the truth is that we have no idea how to fish for lost people. And it turns out the bait is more expensive, and where they swim is more difficult to get to. So we go fishing, but we don’t go far and we use the wrong bait. And we may catch people, maybe even hundreds or thousands. But what kind of people? Perhaps we came up with a few lost people (basically by mistake) but just about everyone we reached are saved people. And so really the truth is … we’re saved people fisherman.

So how do we truly become fishers of lost people? Well, maybe it starts with understanding them. Who are they? Where do they hang out? What might attract them?"

So my added question is...are we fishing in the right places? And if we are in the right place, are we actually sticking our poles in the water or are we just merely trolling around, making it look like we're doing something?

My Early Muir Owl

2007-09-19T09:00:00.001-07:00

This video is crazy seeing I was just talking to someone yesterday regarding their elaborate proposal and my lame one.

Here's a question...what are we willing to do in order to present Jesus in a way to people that they will say yes?

My observation is that a lot of people view the church as a lame fiance making a lame proposal which will lead to a lifetime of "lameness".

Is it wrong to present Jesus to the world in a way that isn't lame?

Will it be worth it?

2007-09-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

Part of our culture at TXC is doing all we can to connect into the greater culture of the community. One of the ways we do this is by being involved in community events. This gives us a chance to rub shoulders with other people who are also a part of the same community, but we may not have had the opportunity to meet them otherwise.

Yesterday we were involved in the Celebration of Community. And to be honest, we weren't sure if we were going to do it again next year. This was completely an experiment. We spent enough money that we really don't have in order to make being at our booth a great experience. I was a little nervous - afterall, who would even want to come to a church booth (maybe it helped that people had to ask what we were cause church is nowhere in our name!) But we pushed ahead and decided that the risk was worth taking.

We ended up getting a money spot for our booth (it pays off to show up early I found out!) It was in a high traffic location and we were all by ourself. The potential to have a really boring booth that people would probably equate to the vibe of our church was high, so we tried to make the whole thing as interactive as we could for this year. Some of the experiment included:

1. -- Thousands of pieces of candy and chocolate in a massive bowl for people to take for free. The kids absolutely loved this. We had so much candy that we were telling kids "You can only take 5!" Their parents started to laugh and we would say "No...serious - take 5!" What do you think the parents did? That's right! "Okay...take 5!" What was funny was people's reaction to the word "Free!" They were asking, "What do I have to do for the candy?" What do you have to do? Huh? So we would play along and ask them to do some Criss Angel stuff and totally confuse them...little did they know, their confusion was enough for us to want them to take some free candy :)

2. -- A fish pond for kids to "go fishing" (Yep...the cheesy carnival type game with the "fish" attaching high end toys to the clip (a.k.a big sweaty guy attaching cheap little toys to fishing rod...okay...I'm joking about the cheap little toys) This was a huge hit! Dave, Charlie and their grade 1 class weren't too sure about their paintjob on the high class cardboard "pond" that they created, but in the end, no one cared! We had close to 600 toys and we got rid of all of them! Towards the end of the day, a lady came up to our booth and said "Do you realize that your booth is the talk of the park? The kids are so a happy!" Now I'm not sure if that's true or not, but it sure is nice to hear...makes you wanna give 'er even more...well not really cause I was spent by the end, but it makes everything you've done up until then worthwhile.

3. -- 2 free movie tickets to SilverCity every hour, on the hour. I can't take credit for the first two ideas - that would be props to Charlene. But this one was one of those experiments that paid off. Originally it was just two movie tickets but then I thought it would be cool to get people coming back to our booth every hour...and if we gave away two movie passes they would for sure come back...Sure enough...they did. Every hour, we would have tons of people put their name in the draw. And on the hour, they would all come back, hang around our booth, waiting for their name to be called. I think this created a "Hey what's going on over there? It MUST be cool!" vibe about our table.

4. -- Church @ the movies postcards and Sneak Peek cd's. This was just to get our information into the hands of everyone. This went really well and people seemed happy to take the cd. If they watch it, I guess we'll never know! However...today, we had one of the families that came to our table show up at our Worship Gathering. And to me, that made yesterday all worth it. she said they'll be back next week so I'm stoked about that!

All in all, the day was incredible. We are already dreaming about what next year will look like. We're going to add some more things to the mix that will help us connect with people easier...make it easier for people to find our table.

After yesterday, it was just confirmed in me even more that we are in the right place at the right time. I really do love this city. It was also nice to recently hear that Donovan is moving to Mission and Dave and Charlene are going to be moving here in the near future as well. I'm stoked...we are only getting started!

Like I said before...we are fools...because we really do believe that God is leading us to do something that others will think cannot be done...I guess the God that I follow is also bigger than their opinion! :)

Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?

2007-09-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

Yes...I know...good 'ol Avril....cheese. But Seth Godin has a great post on the alarm clock and being remarkable:

|For twenty cents or so, alarm clock manufacturers can add a chip that not only knows the time (via a radio signal) but knows what day it is too. Which means that they can add a switch that says "weekends." Which means that the 98% of the population that doesn't want to wake up on the same time on weekends as they do on weekdays will be happier (and better rested.)

This isn't as complicated or expensive as my idea four years ago.

So why doesn't every alarm clock have this feature? Because most people in that business are busy doing their jobs (distribution, promotion, pricing, etc.), not busy making products that people actually want to buy--and talk about.

There are very few products and services that wouldn't get a lot better if people just tried to make them better."

My question is this...is there something as simple as this that can help the church be even more remarkable? It doesn't need to be this massive pyro technics show or thousands of dollars spent on something crazy. In fact, the answer probably isn't found in something big like that...it's probably small, simple and slipping right through our fingers because we're not looking in the right place.

A dream for fools

2007-09-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

"May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done." (From a Franciscan Benediction)

Wow! This is everything I dream for myself, my family and TXC. That last line sent a chill down my spine..."do what others claim cannot be done." I still remember some of the looks and responses of people when I told them that we were planting TXC. "Ohhhhh...that sound good?! (Interpretation: what makes you think you can pull that off? Good luck!)

I guess I'm just a really BIG fool!

As "the Griz" would say "TESTIFY"

There is something in the air...

2007-09-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

It feels thick.

It's as if we're in an enclosed room and if a match were to be lit, there would be a massive explosion. The question is will this explosion be a good thing or a bad thing?

Now I'm not one to get all crazy and over spiritualize things...usually.

But today, something is different. I can't deny the spiritual world. I can't deny that Ephesians 6 is real.

I feel it.

I sense.

I see it.

I see the lives of people very close to me being ravaged and ripped apart. I see others even closer that feel like they are on the brink of shutting down.

The only way I can describe it is as an attack...an onslaught...an all out war. No one said that planting a church would be easy. But right now, I feel like I have to stop playing games. Stop praying little wimpy prayers.

On the way home from the gym this morning something snapped inside of me...It was a "I can't stand this anymore" kind of snap. A "I can't stand this anymore and we have GOT to do something about it" kind of snap. I literally raged out in the spiritual realm and started to pray like I haven't in a while. It's hard to explain. I was yelling, crying, listening...you name it. And all I can attribute this sudden change to is one thing...

I asked for God's heart for this city and region. I know...it sounds weird. But I've come to realize that I'm very selfish and greedy and arrogant and if TXC is going to reach ANYONE and reconnect them to Jesus, then I, as the "lead" leader, have got to see our region through the eyes of God and feel his heart for the people.

So I asked for it. And this is what I got. The anger I felt this morning and am still feeling is not anger towards people that don't follow Jesus. It's anger towards Satan (Yes I know...some of you think that even mentioning his name is giving him to much credit) It's anger at the injustice that is going on in the lives of people in this region...people in our church...my friends. It doesn't have to be this way!

Part of the problem is that I think too many of us are sitting on the sidelines...watching. And as we watch, we are getting taken out. We are watching because we are afraid. But the reality is that whether you choose to watch or whether you choose to run into the war head on...you are a target. So do you want to be a target that is fighting or a target that is watching?

For anyone that reads this and is a part of TXC or is in support of TXC, I want you to do something. I want you to get off the sidelines. And right now, you do this by starting to pray. Start praying that God would continue to give us his favor with anyone that is disconnected from him. Pray that our influence would continue to expand that those seeking God would find him. Pray that those in our church and community would find the freedom that God says is already ours. Pray that God's kingdom would forcefully advance in Mission.

I know I might sound crazy to some of you. You may even be laughing. You might think I'm over spiritualizing this...that I sound like a wing nut.

But I've come to this conclusion...

I DON'T CARE! We are always going to have critics - if not more when this starts to pick up like it will. Why not get started now! This is far too important to pussy foot around living in fear of what people will think. I can't care what other people think about me because it will paralyze where we go as a church. The lives of thousands and thousands of people are at stake and I'm choosing RIGHT NOW to run into the war with everything I've got.

And when this match is lit, I am believing that the explosion we see will be thousands of people running towards God, not away.

Who's up for a beat down?

2007-09-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

I read the following post over on Steven Furtick's blog:

"When I started middle school my dad taught me a simple, slightly controversial, and very effective strategy in case I ever got in a fight.
(He was already about 3 years too late, but better late than never.)

“Now boy, don’t you ever go looking for trouble, but if someone starts something with you, here’s what I want you to do. The moment you realize a fight is unavoidable, you make sure you throw the first punch.”
(Actually I think he said “get the first lick in”, but I’m not sure how that would translate for my non-Southern readers).

Relax, I’m not advocating fist fighting (necessarily ). Just thought it made for a cool analogy.
Every single morning I wake up, I’m a marked man. Every day of my life, there’s going to be a fight, God’s Word says so.

So why should I wait around to get sucker punched? Why not drop kick the devil in the teeth before he knows what hits him? Why not get the first lick in every single morning?
Lately I’ve been waking up, going straight to the shower, and quoting the Word of God out loud. I’m not going to spend the first part of my day playing defense, I’m going on the attack.

I think too many Christians wait until just before the T.K.O. to start fighting. We unnecessarily get our brains beat out by failure, sickness, and overwhelming pressure…

Try this.
The next time you feel temptation coming on, don’t wait until the standing 8 count starts to get serious about the fight.
The next time you hear depression or discouragement taunting you, don’t wait until you’re seeing stars before you begin to block and bob and weave and counterpunch.

You’re in for a fight every day of your life.
Come out swinging.
And go for broke.
After all, the fight is fixed. "

Wow! I can't agree with him more! Read Ephesians 6...we are in a war whether we like to admit it or not. and the thing I fear is that a lot of us just think it's a big joke. The "spiritual" world, especially when we talk about the devil and demons, is just too weird. So what do we do, we ignore it! We read our bible's and pray when we "feel" like it - which probably isn't very often and then we wonder why we don't "feel" like following Jesus wherever he takes us. We wonder why we feel beat up all the time - maybe it's because WE ARE GETTING BEAT UP!

Maybe it's time we start living life offensively (proactively) rather than defensively (reactively). Or as my dad always taught me, punch him in the nose and make sure he doesn't get back up! Maybe it's time to offensively punch the devil in the nose, stop living a yo-yo life of constantly being beat down and life in the freedom that we already have - we just have to walk in it!

Confronted by my own judgmental heart

2007-09-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

I read the following post over on Leading Smart this morning:

On Saturday it was my goal to stay home all day, but just after lunch I had to run down to the corner nursery to pick up my fertilizer. I was on my way back when I noticed something very strange. At the gas station across the street, there was a car that was pointed at a 45-degree downward with its back wheels in the air. The driver had tried to jump a curb not realizing there was an 18-inch drop-off between the gas station parking lot and the lot next door. His car was perched on the curb and he was in deep trouble. My first thought, which I said aloud, "Oh my. Sucks to be you."

I watched for a few minutes as two guys circled the car considering their options. I was going to drive on home but needed gas anyway, so I pulled over to a pump where I could lurk from behind my car.

The two guys circling the car were punks. They had body piercings everywhere, tattoos all over. I'd guess them to be about 20-years old. I'm just staring, amazed, wondering what these idiots were thinking when they tried to jump the curb.

Then I noticed the car model. It was a newer model, luxury car. It was easily a $50k car. Then I got even more disgusted. These punks are driving around in daddy's car and just messed it up. I even said it to the guy pumping gas next to me who just returned from walking over closer to the crisis: "A couple punks messed up daddy's car, huh?"

That's when I started realizing how wrong I was. He replied, "Nope. There are three little kids still in the car and their dad was driving." I looked past the "punks" and saw a young Hispanic man and his wife, very shook-up, trying to figure out what to do.

These young white "punks" had stopped their car to help the Hispanic man in distress. I'm ashamed to say that stopping to help had never crossed my mind. It was my day-off. I was working in my yard. I was busy. Plus I was consumed by my judgmental thoughts toward the jerks who got themselves in that position. Besides, what could I do? They needed major help. Like a crane or a tow truck.

As I finished pumping, one of the "punks" called out at me. "Hey, can you give us a hand?" They had analyzed the situation and figured with 4 or 5 men they could lift the car off the curb and get this guy on his way. I would never have attempted that or even thought it was possible. But within about 10 minutes, 4 of us (through the very capable leadership of the "punks") got the Hispanic family on their way. The driver quickly grabbed his wallet and offered to pay the "punks" but they waved him off, got back in their car, and drove away. They didn't want money or recognition. They were just there to help.

I got back in my car, not feeling good about helping the helpless--but feeling guilty for my quick judgmentalism. I wasn't happy I could help--I was aware that I would have just watched from behind my car if the "punk" hadn't called out.

Pride is so subtle. It twists its way through our hearts and makes us less than Jesus-like. I'm just glad that I got to witness Jesus this weekend through the actions of a couple punks.

Proverbs 29:23- "A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor."

I don't know about you but I have found myself in this position more than once...this was a great reminder to keep myself in check and not to jump to conclusions before I know the full details.

Mr. Invincible?

2007-09-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

I was having a conversation with Dave the other day and we were talking about affairs. Now before you jump to any conclusion we were NOT reminiscing about previous affairs we've had! We were discussing how easy it is to think that you are invincible when it comes to affairs and divorce. I honestly can't imagine my life without Bek or my kids. I can't imagine what it would do to our kids. I NEVER want that to happen EVER!

But I have to face a reality: I'm not invincible. I may think it could never happen to me - if I did...I would be a fool. As we've all seen, it can happen to everyone - even the most respected Christian leaders of our time!

But hoping and praying that it doesn't happen to me isn't good enough. That's right...praying about it isn't good enough. I have to take drastic measures that will help to ensure that I stay away from that fire. Part of that is not finding myself alone with other women. This is a very difficult thing to do some times and logistics can be hard to work out - especially when you have women on your staff. But, in all honesty, I don't care how hard it is or what the perception of me is. I may be viewed as a sexist pig- so be it! My marriage is far to important to me than what other women think of me. I belong to my wife and I will do whatever it takes to make sure it stays that way till the day I die!

What are you looking for?

2007-09-09T21:51:00.000-07:00

Donovan did an awesome job preaching this morning on Jonah 3 and nailed what we are all about as a church. He basically stated that if you are looking for a sign to see that Jesus is real, stop looking for the "huge" supernatural sign - a crazy healing, someone being raised from the dead, etc. If you need a sign, just talk to the person sitting next to you or behind you or in front of you. Hear their story and you will see the sign. Because the reality is that Jesus is changing peoples' lives like crazy in our faith community. We keep hearing story after story and if you actually took the time to hear someone's story, you'd get your sign. How can you deny that?

What's going on?

2007-09-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to put into words what's happening at TXC. There is this invisible vibe of crazy of anticipation that just isn't normal. My buddy came to check our worship gathering out for the first time and as I customarily do, I asked him what his experience was like. His response was kind of odd. He said he can "feel vision" in the place. What's funny is that to the rational mind, that doesn't make any sense. But it made complete sense to me! (what does that say about me?) He said that it feels like there is no limit to what could happen through TXC and that there was a feeling of actual belief that God was going to do something huge, not just a simple "I hope so". And all of this with no understanding of our vision or how we think. He also had no idea that we've had multiple people saying the exact same things. Scares the snot out of me AND gets my blood ripping through my veins at the same time!

The reality is that as a lead team...we are freaking crazy! We seriously believe that God can do something huge through TXC, in our community and across the world. I have no intention of leaving EVER and plan on investing every minute of the rest of my life to see our vision lived out.

We had our UnderCurrent leaders' meeting tonight. We are amped! We have some amazing leaders and are set to get this movement underway. We already launched in February but that was more of a test run and this is more like a re-launch and it's a little more intentional. At this point we have the potential to have around 50% of our church in an undercurrent for the next few months. Our goal is to get to 60-75% in the coming months. I think this is key for us strengthening the network of community and friendships that we've already seen building.

Needless to say, we're stoked for the coming days of TXC.

A risk worth taking

2007-09-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

When I was just a young punk (has that changed?) Mark Moody took a chance on me. I had just come out of a year of being pretty messed up and then God radically got a hold of me again. It was at this point that I was offered my first job as a youth director. No experience. No brains. Nothing. Just a 19 year old kid that knew God wanted him to do something with his life that pointed others to him as well.

For the next two years, I attempted to lead a youth group (the first of those years was alongside my best friend). When I think back it's actually quite frightening because I don't think I tried to learn anything from anyone that knew what they were doing. We just plowed ahead and hoped that it worked.

Part of the deal was that, for every year I worked, they would put aside $4k to go towards Bible college. After two years, my time was up and I left for Summit Pacific College.

I wish I could say that I left the place in running order, but in reality, it was a mess. I had no concept of leading other leaders. Nothing was structured or set up and the next few years were a time of picking up the pieces that I left laying on the floor!

What an encouraging story hey?!

I say all this because the person who took a chance on me came to TXC for the first time. Their encouraging words regarding their experience were much needed and were far more detailed that what I have written and were a total confirmation to what we have felt since the beginning.

In essence for him, it was a confirmation that the risk he took by taking me under his wing 10 years ago was well worth it in the end. I'm sure it frustrated him way more than he let on at the time but he kept on encouraging me and letting me make my mistakes.

It was kind of surreal speaking in front of him to be honest. He is known for his incredible preaching and to have him say how much he enjoyed it just blew me away. But it also challenged me to take risks on people, even when I think they are hopeless. I know I won't always have "success stories" where everything works out the way that I think it should, but that shouldn't stop me from seeing the potential in people and allowing them to develop and grow into the person God dreams for them to be.

boats, sweat and the mission

2007-08-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we hauled a boat into the theatre and I ended up preaching from the boat as it balanced on top of the lower level chairs. It was something I've never done before and it kept people on edge the whole time as they thought I was going to tip the thing over. We just started a series on Jonah so it fit great. It will stay there for the next 3 weeks as we keep adding more elements to the set that fit the theme each week. For instance, this week we will have a live beluga whale if we can successfully "borrow" one at 3am this Friday from the Vancouver Aquarium! This kind of stuff keeps everything interesting and people don't know what to expect. It contributes to the whole experiential learning environment that we are trying to create.

However, these things we are trying to use mean absolutely nothing on their own. The only thing that makes doing this type of stuff worthwhile is the fact that we are seeing people's lives changed. People are getting re:connected to Jesus and that's what we are all about. The stories of what God is doing inside of people is incredible! I really do believe that we have just seen the tip of the iceberg. The places where people are coming from in their lives and finding Jesus blows my mind. It proves to me that Jesus is still relevant. People that have lived their lives with no care in the world when it comes to matters of God are suddenly having a real wake up call and starting to explore.

So if boats and whales and working harder and sweating more at 7am on Sundays is going to reconnect more and more people to Jesus...I'm all in!

Don't get to comfortable in those skivvies!

2007-08-22T18:41:00.000-07:00

I thought this conversation was funny and oh-so-true-, over on Ben Arment's blog:

Just got off the phone with a good friend who is contemplating starting a church... which is awesome cuz he'll be great at it. He's already come to understand the Holy Frustration he's been experiencing for months. But his unspoken question is "How do I get rid of the Holy Terror?" The white-knuckle-making, back-hair-raising, cotton-mouth-licking, underwear replacing plummet toward sudden death that comes with such leaps of faith.
You don't.
You just jump.

I'll just lay it all out on the line here...With planting TXC...I've had to replace my skivvies a couple of times! :)

Equilibrium...at last!

2007-08-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today is a glorious day! I know this will sound petty but it has been incredibly frustrating! I'm a self professed computer geek (don't know much about them but like sitting in front of them) and a huge part of that is internet. However, for the last 9 months we've had dialup because for that whole time we believed that we weren't able to get it. Our connection speed is 26.4kbps. (For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, if you have high speed internet, your connection speed is usually 100mbps. If you notice the 'k' and the 'm'...that's the huge difference and it basically means that I suck and you rock!)

Telus said no and our landlord said Shaw was also a no go. Well, the other day I lost it and decided that I would give shaw a try "just to see for myself". And to my delightful surprise, the lady on the other end made my day by saying it will be all done on the 27th!

Now, if you knew where I live, it may make more sense why this is so good. We basically live out in the sticks in the backwoods of Mission. Bek just got a new job and is now working in Abby 4 days a week and taking the van with her. This leaves me on our mountain stranded...with dialup. With trying to work from home this has been just ridiculous. I've basically been able to get to a coffee shop one day a week where I frantically try and get all of my internet stuff done as quickly as possible so it doesn't get left for another week.

I now feel normal! (almost) Bek and I love our basement suite. It was incredible that we got it in the first place but the one thing that we were both choked about was the fact that we couldn't (at least that's what we thought) get highspeed. Now this is our dream house (minus the 'our').

Anyways...it's over dramatic and over the top but for those of you that know me...it's nothing new.

The joys of meeting in a movie theatre

2007-08-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of those days when being a church that has gatherings in public places presented it's challenges. Last week, all our media and words for the songs couldn't be displayed because the theatre projector was pooched. When we showed up this week we were told it would be fixed...but it wasn't. So we moved over to a theatre that we thought the projector might work...when I got up to the projection room I found out that the projector was basically the size of a UFO (and looked like one too - or at least what I think they look like) and had no power button except for on a remote control. After a while of trying to get that one working, we threw in the towel, packed up our gear and moved to the next theatre over.

So now we are all sweating profusely and having to get used to the setup being reversed. Nonetheless, we got everything set up and practiced up with time to spare.

After everything was said and done, it was an awesome day. We saw new guests, the band was smokin' hot and Donovan did an excellent job with preaching. For the first time, I sat in the upper deck and it was great. I think I was a little rowdy from going nuts getting everything set up and was cheering the band and Donovan on. Bek was a somewhat embarrassed and wished I was sitting down below but whatever, it was fun. The vibe in the hall after was crazy as people were basically screaming to talk with each other. Our tradition of the 15 minute exit continues to work!

Sometimes in the moment of having issues come one after the other, it's easy to wish we had a permanent place to meet. But one of our values is life altering adventure...not that this is life altering, but it's part of the adventure. I'm learning to be more adaptable and flexible and just to roll with whatever comes our way. Last week the projector didn't work, we just had a blank screen. This week, we switched theatres and it was great. People were confused but I think it added a little jolt of change that gets people's energy back up. All in all a great gathering.

Character matters

2007-08-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

This is a great post on character and looking at Barry Bonds' new homerun record. Does it really matter if there is question about the character that got you that record? I mean, steroids or not, he can still hit the ball...can't he?

I remember when Barry Bonds was THE christian in baseball...him and his silver cross around his neck. As a kid I remember being so proud to be a Christian like Barry..now...like this post says...he's just an arrogant jerk. Who cares if you're on top of the world if your character is in question because there is always the question "Did he/she cheat to get there?"

Unfortunately...Barry has to live with this for the rest of his life. The question is what will you and I decide when it comes to choosing a life of integrity? What do we want our legacy to be?

That's in the Bible?

2007-08-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

I'm really enjoying reading the Bible in The Message paraphrase. I'm quite a simple guy and need things to just be told to me straight. I read a lot of books but I usually only get through the ones where the author isn't some dude that thinks he's smarter than he is and uses big words to confuse all of the idiots! So The Message makes sense to me. I know it's not a literal translation and shouldn't be used for studying, but I think it's great to get the general themes. Because the writing is much more simple and uncluttered, I've been noticing some of the stories more, where before, I probably would have just skimmed over it. A few of my favorites so far:

#1:
Genesis 29. Jacob is arriving at his uncles place and comes up to a well where all of the shepherds give their sheep water. Jacob asks why they aren't giving their sheep water and they let him know that the stone is so heavy that they need to wait for all the shepherds to show up and give a hand in order to take the stone off. Well lo and behold, who should walk up, but the hot babe Rachel, who is also his cousin (Yes I know...it's gross...but this was pretty standard at this time) and the shepherd of his uncle Laban's sheep.

Now here's the hilarious part! As soon as Jacob sees Rachel, he single handedly rolls off the stone that would usually take a bunch of shepherds, and waters his uncles sheep that are in Rachel's care. He then kisses Rachel and breaks into tears!

This is just so typical of a macho man - taking on the stone by himself - look at me. I am strong. *Flex* And then he breaks into tears. Mama's boy.

Onto the next story...

#2:
Genesis 34. One of Jacob's daughters, Dinah, goes into town and ends up getting raped by one of the local boys. The guy falls in love with her and wants to marry her. Jacob hears about this and tells Dinah's brothers. They end up telling the sicko pervert rapist that he can marry their sister if every male in their town got circumcised. The guy and his dad agree and convince the rest of the town to follow along...so they all get circumcised. That's some pretty hard core "love" if you ask me!

Here's the hilarious/twisted part! While the whole male population is "healing back up" from having their schmuck chopped off, two Dinah's brothers roll into town with swords, as if they owned the place, and murder every man there! Then when the rest of the brothers show up on the scene of the slaughter, they loot the place and take everything, including wives and kids as captives. Jacob is ticked that his sons would do something like but they reply, "Nobody is going to treat our sister like a whore and get by with it." This is perhaps the craziest story of revenge I've heard of...kill 'em while their down!

Maybe I'll end up seeing the spiritual value of these stories in the future but what I'm excited about is that they are jumping out to me instead of just being read over in an attempt to read the bible. I just love the way The Message is written...it just makes sense to me. I don't really have a strict schedule for when I read or how much I read...I'm just trying to read and learn. God's word doesn't change your life just because you skim read it in order to say you've read it. The principles need to be applied (not sure if killing freshly circumcised dudes is principle to be applied...). Action is required. The Message is helping to bring a new freshness devotional life and I'm looking forward to continuing to read, no matter how slow I may be!

We are looking for some gear!

2007-08-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

We are starting a new series in 3 weeks and we are looking for some equipment. If you have any of the following stuff and are willing to let us borrow it, please let us know!

A small aluminum fishing boat
Oars
Life jackets
Hand held Fishing nets
Fishing nets (The kind that drag behind a boat - not too huge though- maybe just a section of old net that you aren't using anymore. How can you tell I don't fish! Haha!)
A captains wheel

That's all that is coming to my mind right now but maybe you have some other ideas that we could use...let us know!

Feed me!

2007-08-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

Read this post this morning and I couldn't agree more! However, the awesome thing about this is that I haven't had to deal with this at all.

What I'm not saying is that I'm the most amazing speaker and have incredible insight into God's word and the ability to convey it in a way that will keep the people in TXC "fed" for a whole week until the next time we meet.

What I am saying is that our experience so far has been that the people of TXC have been feeding themselves. They haven't been relying on me to be their primary source of "getting fed". Their commitment to pursuing community outside of Sundays has been awesome to see and it's so vital if we are to be any more than a Sunday morning church. They've been meeting together to pray for each other and others our church. They are studying the Bible on their own time, "feeding themselves". That is just the tip of the iceberg but I'm stoked!

TXC...I couldn't imagine being able to pastor a more passionate group of people that have one goal...reconnecting people to Jesus. There is an expectation and anticipation inside so many of you and I want to encourage you to continue to pursue Jesus in your everyday lives. Don't let a few words on Sunday be "the meat" of your spiritual life. Continue doing what you have been doing up until now and see what God is going to do in your life

Finding the healthy tension

2007-07-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things I've experienced so far with TXC is finding a healthy tension between encouraging people to live more like Jesus and giving them time to change (or giving God time to change them). It's way too easy to slip into pharisee mode and declare that "if you don't change...you're done! And God won't love you anymore!" I don't think I've said these exact words but I've had an attitude that could be equivalent to them at times. I've had to learn the hard way how easy it is for me to get to that extreme and through a few errors I now know when I need to take things extremely slowly so my little pea brain doesn't start thinking that I've got it all figured out.

I know that as a pastor, part of my responsibility is first to be taking steps towards Jesus in my own life and then to be encouraging others to do the same. I try to be as open as I can with my personal struggles with different things in my life and let people know I'm not perfect but I'm trying my best to move towards Jesus. It's just hard for me to know how to navigate through the waters of encouraging people to move forward but not becoming a pompous freak at the same time.

What I'm learning is that it's not my job to change people. Period. It's my job to lead people towards Jesus, but if they don't want to move, I can't do anything about it. I'm learning that I can't get frustrated when people don't want to move ahead. I have to be able to trust that God is in control and I don't have to get my little fingers in there and mess it all up. I can only hope and pray that my mistakes will one day be redeemed and,in the future, I will be more attentive to what God is saying to me and stick to what is my responsibility and let God be in control of what is already his in the first place.

Sometimes I just don't get God

2007-07-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things with being a pastor is not having all the answers for people when they are hurting and confused.

About 5 years ago, there was a youth pastor that I knew of that had been married for a few years. They were a happy couple and seemed to be picture perfect. They were driving up to Kamloops when they hit some black ice, the truck went out of control and flipped over quite a few times on the highway. She ended up dying in his arms. What do you say to that? He ended up getting remarried last year and seems to be happy again but the memory and pain has to still be there. Imagine the questions, the anger, the hurt, the hopelessness. Where was God?

On monday, a 2 year old baby died by choking to death on a rubber ball. What do you say to that? My little girl is 2. I would freak out! That little girl that is now with Jesus had an auntie that she never knew.

About 5 years ago, her auntie died in the arms of her husband on a trip up to Kamloops.

This little girl's mommy (if you haven't pieced it together - the sister of the girl who died 5 years ago in the arms of her husband) is now left with no answers. "Where are you God? Why me? Do you hate me? 5 years ago she lost her sister in a freak accident. 5 days ago, she lost her 2 year old daughter in a freak accident.

I don't have all the answers. I know God is there but there is nothing I can say to change the gut wrenching cry of someone who wants answers. I never had to be there for this woman. But if I had to, all I would be able to do was listen and cry with her.

Sometimes, God is found when we learn to close our mouths, listen and walk through the valley with the broken.

Kitchen nightmares

2007-07-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

WARNING!!! The following post is a rant! If you don't want to see my negative side and wish to continue thinking that I'm the most positive, smiley and hopeful person you know...I'm good with that. Just don't read this post because you're hopes and dreams of who I am are about to get crushed!

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So a few months ago I was given some giftcards to restaurant in town (which will remain nameless. Those who've been here before will know where I'm talking about!). The manager (owner?) gave her 4 - $10 gift cards to give out and a whole bunch of flyers to promote a "deal" they are having. Well as time went on, we kept forgetting to give out these cards and today we decided to use them, seeing they expire on Monday. We figured maybe we should test the place out before we promote it :) Good thing we did.

We arrived and it was very cool. Funky waterfall. The decor was dark and rich. Had a cool vibe. We got seated and began to notice things right away without even trying to pick it apart - they just started happening and we had to notice!

The waitresses were all younger girls...young adult age. The only problem is that they all were acting like they had just got out of bed or were up all night partying. I don't know. The place was very cool but it needed some life...that's where the waitresses could have made it happen. They didn't.

We ordered our food. Bek ordered a vanilla milkshake, Riley got chocolate milk, Emma got apple juice and I got diet pepsi. When the milk shake arrived...the whip cream on top was sour. It was disgusting. Riley's chocolate milk was regular milk with, what looked and tasted like, a tiny squeeze of chocolate sauce added into it. My first pop was alright...my refill was flat. I never finished it.

While waiting for our food, the waitress brought out crackers for the kids, just in case they were starving from having to wait for so long to get our food. This is almost laughable as I type this...just ridiculous. So the kids ate the crackers...and we waited for our food. And waited.

I should add that there were about 6 tables with people at them. As we waited, we watched people return garlic toast, flat pop, etc. I was like "What's going on here?"

The food showed up. The kids pizza looked like it had been microwaved. It was supposed to be cheeze pizza. It was flat bread, burnt in the oven, with what seemed like 5 cups of sauce on each little piece of flat bread and a few pieces of unmelted cheese scattered overtop. It was messy and just gross. The only good thing about their meal was the fries were seasoned and actually good. Our food then showed up - potato skins and artichoke dip in a bread bowl. It looked delicious. The artichoke dip actually tasted really good. The issue was that in a very deep and big bread bowl, 1/4 of the bread had been dug out! So we were excited until we each ate two chips and the dip was all gone! The potato wedges looked good but were deep fried and had no flavor whatsoever.

In the end, the best part was the chocolate they brought us after we paid. It really was a joke. I just couldn't believe it. And I know it was free for us but come on - even if something is free- if it sucks, are you really going to go back? You'd have to pay me to go back there. My conclusion is that there is a serious management issue going on. Either that cook was making stuff the way that his manager told him to or he just flat out sucked. Either way, the manager/owner needs Chef Ramsay to come in there and kick some bullocks. I'm convinced if this place was in England, it'd be making Ramsay some money by being on his show.

I learned something today. Maybe I'm a freak but I compare almost everything that has to do with customer service to TXC. I just believe with all my heart that a guests' first impression is what will determine if they come back or not. And by first impression, I mean as soon as they get onto the theatre patio. If they walk into the theatre and there is no one that is genuinely excited to see them, even an incredible gathering won't bring them back. I've been to churches where I've walked in, sat down for the service and left at the end and had not one person say a single word to me. Maybe some people like that...but I'd argue not very many. I think that is lazy and just not called for. At the same time, you could have a terrible gathering and the best front end team ever and people aren't going to come back. It's the whole thing. If the food was amazing today and the servers were still lackluster, I would still be leary of going back. The servers make the whole experience that much more enjoyable.

Sundays are one part of what we do at TXC. I think we do an incredible job of welcoming guests. I think our music is bar none the best I've experienced in the churches that I've been a part of. Our communication of biblical truth is getting better as the weeks go by. Our kids stuff is just going to get better in the future. But we can't let this stop us from learning and growing and changing and taking risks to connect with people in new and fresh ways.

So in the end, our kitchen nightmare turned out to be a positive learning experience. It's just too bad that a cool place like this is going to go broke because of the management. Let's not find ourselves in the same situation and stay focused on doing whatever it takes, short of sin, to reconnect people to Jesus!

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End of rant! So how does it feel to know who I "really" am? :) See you tomorrow!

First time guests

2007-07-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

A few posts here and here talk about the experience of the first time guest at your church. Let me know what you think. For what it's worth, we try and very hardest to filter everything we do through the experience of the first time guest. We definitely don't have it all figured out so if you've got some insight, please let me know!

The JCC

2007-07-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

Read this post and go to the website to understand the context of this post.

The only "really nice" car I've owned was one I actually never owned. It was a '98 Neon and my parents "bought" it for me for a year and said I had to take the payments over after that. I ended up getting married so just prior to that, they took the car back after two months and gave us a '88 honda accord. Prior to the Neon I had an 11 passenger '87 gmc van given to me that was an absolute piece of crap that cost me a fortune in gas to run. After the '88 accord we bought a '92 civic in our first year of marriage and then 3 years ago we traded it in for a '99 chevy venture minivan. And the whole time...I've wished I could have a sweet ride.

Why is that? What is it in me that has this need to own a really nice vehicle so people can look and me and think I'm a really cool person? The fact is that my minivan is awesome and suits our family just great. But it definitely isn't cool. I don't care how much you try and justify the "cool factor" in owning a minivan. If that's you, we may be able to help out with you getting some professional help!

JCC stands for "Junky Car Club" and it's an effort to get people to drive cars that are less expensive and don't require high payments equal to a month's worth of rent so that they can have more money to give away to those that need it! What a novel concept! The irony of it all is that the junkier your car...the cooler you are! But the idea is to have less so others can have more.

On tap or bottled?

2007-07-26T16:31:00.000-07:00

I read the following post here today and it got me thinking some more just about how, as Christians, we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth that God gave us live on. But why is it that we don't view taking care of our world a spiritual activity? Shouldn't it be? Just a thought...

"For those of you into preserving the earth and good stewardship of the world in which we live, here is an interesting article on bottled water from Fast Company. Here is a summary of the article from urbana.org.

Last year, Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water -- more than we spent on movie tickets or iPods. This year that is expected to be $16 billion.
Water is basically free, and for now more or less abundant in most of the U.S.
Buying bottled water is essentially buying convenience.
24% of the bottled water Americans buy is repackaged tap water created by Coke and Pepsi.
Americans drink more bottled water than milk, or coffee, or beer.
Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year, 167 for each person.
Americans throw 38 billion water bottles a year into landfills. (Over $1 billion worth of plastic which could have been recycled -- only 1/4 of all the bottles are recycled by consumers).
It's easier for most Americans to get as much drinking water from Fiji as they want, than it is for over half the people of Fiji, where the water is bottled yet safe drinking water for the local population is scarce.
If the water we use at home were to cost what even the cheapest bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000. (Point is: we pay a lot for what is available for almost nothing.)
Most of the world's bottled water is dominated by four companies: Pepsi, Coke, Danone, and Nestle.
Within a decade, American consumption of bottled water is expected to surpass soda. Maybe that's a good thing for health reasons. But is it good stewardship?
One out of six people in the world does not have a safe, dependable source of drinking water. That's a billion people.
Each day, 3,000 children die from diseases caught from tainted water.

And before we argue about the cleanliness of tap water, check out this paragraph: "We buy bottled water because we think it's healthy. Which it is, of course: Every 12-year-old who buys a bottle of water from a vending machine instead of a 16-ounce Coke is inarguably making a healthier choice. But bottled water isn't healthier, or safer, than tap water. Indeed, while the United States is the single biggest consumer in the world's $50 billion bottled-water market, it is the only one of the top four--the others are Brazil, China, and Mexico--that has universally reliable tap water. Tap water in this country, with rare exceptions, is impressively safe."

And this line: "If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35."

I drink a lot of water. Most of it from the purifier on my tap. This article will definitely make you think about the money invested in bottled water when so many thousands die daily because they have no clean water."

Get ready

2007-07-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

Around 3 years ago, I kept getting this strong impression that I believe was God telling me "Get Ready! Something huge is about to happen!" And this wasn't just a one time thing...it was constant.

At the time I was a youth pastor and I thought it had to do with the youth ministry I was leading. So I kept telling the youth to get ready. Then I took on the young adults at the same time and thought that it had to do with the young adults. And then came the dream for TXC...

I really had forgotten all about that...until last night.

We were talking about the positive things from Sunday and two things jumped out at us and Dave reminded me about what I felt 3 years ago.

Donovan's mom came to our gathering for the first time on Sunday. Afterwards she told Donovan that she couldn't put her finger on it but that she just had this strong feeling the whole time that there was something going on underneath the surface that we couldn't see. It was like a pot of water that was just at the point of boiling over. She said she could feel the growth (even though, to the naked eye, it's obvious that we aren't huge in numbers)

Then the conversation with "Joe" when he was encouraging us to keep our authenticity when we grow...then he added "And you WILL grow"

Then I flashed back to a conversation I had with a guy that came for the first time around 2 months ago. He said the same thing...that he can sense that this is about to take off.

This gets me nervous, excited, freaked out, amped up and everything else in between to think about what I heard God say 3 years ago and then to see all of these "coincidences" starting to line up.

I honestly don't know what to expect. Last night was one of the most crazy lead team meetings that we've had in a while as we started to talk and prepare for something that is essentially unknown. All we know is that TXC is God dream and we feel at a very intense level that He is going to do something that we can't even imagine.

So my encouragement to you and I...

Get ready.

A few screws loose

2007-07-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

I think in order to be a church planter, you've gotta be a little nuts. You gotta have a few screws loose to think that, with God's and a ton of other people's help, you can help in starting a church that lasts. I was talking with my old senior pastor (from our sending church) the other day and he said he brags about his old youth pastor that was as dumb as a sack of nails to think that he could plant a church in Mission...but he's doing it. I laughed and had to agree. I was off my rocker! I wasn't thinking straight...and I'm still not. I still believe beyond anything that God is going to do something HUGE through our little church that meets in a movie theatre. In fact, I know he's already doing it. Yesterday was verification of that fact.

I met a guy for the first time that was there for the second time...we'll call him "Joe". He had come two weeks ago with his wife who had been once before. The freaky thing about two weeks ago was that it was our first week without a full band and it was just a more mellow week. Not too much hype to "impress" anyone. So I was a little nervous to hear his story. I was expecting to hear that he had seen and heard better and that he wouldn't be back. What I was about to hear was exactly what I needed.

He proceeded to inform me that he lived in vancouver (He sleeps over with his wife at his inlaws house on Saturdays now so he can come out to TXC) and that he was extremely hesitant to come to a church, especially one that was small like ours. But his wife had come and told him that he needed to at least check it out. So he came. No band. No flair. The word he used was one that I have repeatedly heard over and over when our church is referenced.

"Refreshing." I hear that word when someone is in extreme heat and jumps into a cold lake. Hardly do I hear it used in conversation. But that's the word he used. For some reason that word is so encouraging to me. Someone that hasn't been to church in a few years decides to take a chance on church again...maybe even God. We're nervous because we've really got nothing to offer anyone as far as "cool" is concerned. We're just normal, everyday people that are in pursuit of Jesus.

In the end, that's what he said was the thing that appealed to him...the honesty and authenticity of those leading. The fact that we're open with the reality of being in process as well...works in progress.

He also had words of encouragement as well. He challenged me to never lose sight of what makes us who we are right now. That as we grow (he made sure I knew that it was going to) we don't get caught in the whirlwind of it all and become someone we're not. To be honest, I've found myself moving away from that at times already. I've allowed my religious Pharisaical side to emerge and I've treated other people as lower than myself. And I've had to learn and keep moving forward. I'm in need of God's mercy and grace just as much as the next person.

To the second time guest...Joe...thank you! Thank you for the reminder. Thank you for the encouragement. Thank you for the renewed passion to continue to be who we are as a church. We exist for Joe and we're seeing God do some incredible things through the little that we have. I'm amazed and humbled to know that I get to be a part of this thing we call The CrossCurrent!

I still remember

2007-07-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

the day that the dream for TXC was branded onto my heart. It was March 6 of last year and I was sitting in my office at APA and it basically paralyzed me. I started writing and writing like a madman about what the possibilities could be. I talked to my pastor about it and put the future of the dream of his hands, saying that if he didn't believe it was from God that I would let it die then and there. He felt it was a God thing and I started to move forward.

I figured SilverCity would be WAY to expensive or that someone else would already be in there but I decided to pick up the phone that very day and try it out for the heck of it. As it turned out, Cineplex worked with churches and gave them a great deal and I basically made a tentative agreement on the spot. What's crazy about this is that I hadn't been out to the Junction hardly at all, except to watch a few movies. I couldn't even remember the last time I was out there.

By this time, the blood was pounding through my veins and I could hardly see straight I was so ecstatic about the possibilities. As I drove out there my mind was racing and, even though nothing was even close to being a possibility, I felt like something was on the verge of happening. As I drove into the Junction I had this overwhelming feeling like "This is it!" I called Bek and I couldn't even get my words out to form a coherent sentence. I just kept saying "This is it" (At this point, Emma was 3 weeks away from being born so she was in a different frame of mind, still excited though.)

From there we had this dream just exploding in front of us. Another messed up piece of the puzzle was the fact that I hadn't even passed my assessment or gone to the Church Planters Summit yet. We had no idea where the money was going to come from or how any of this would even work. We just knew that God had birthed this insane thing in us and we were going for it.

Up until this point I had never had this type of faith...the crazy faith that step out into the middle of nowhere and just expects God to show up because he said that he would. I've never felt this kind of excitement before and I had finally come to realization that this is why I was created...for this moment and the journey that lay in front of me.

And the rest is history. Yesterday I listened to talk from Bill Hybels regarding when he started Willow Creek in 1975 and his first point was, in regards to planting a church, "Make sure that you have a holy discontent and not just a 'hankering'" I fully agree with this. He said that if it's just something that you think looks like fun, you'll more than likely quit when it gets tough. I can honestly say that when the dream for TXC was birthed in me almost a year and half ago, I just couldn't shake it. It consumed me completely. And I can honestly say that today, there is nothing else that I would ever even consider doing that seeing this church become what God intends for it to be. Of course there are days where my rationale self kicks in and I think "What on earth am I doing?! Who do I think I am? Planting a church from scratch?"

And then I remember that day...the day my life fell apart in the best way imaginable with a dream that changed the direction of my life forever. I'm so excited for what God is going to do and is already doing through our church.

Dream huge! Don't let your fear of "what might happen" stand in the way of what God could do in and through your life. Following God into the deep end is one of the most frightening and exhilarating things that you will ever do. Don't settle for comfort. Don't let the people around you tell you that it's impossible and it can't be done. If you have that holy discontent for something and you feel like there is nothing else on earth that you could imagine yourself doing...do it! You're life and view of God will never be the same!

A glimpse of the future

2007-07-07T21:59:00.000-07:00

I just got back from "Transformers" and it was an awesome movie! But this isn't a post about the movie, this is a post about how many people there were in Theatre #2. Right now we are in Theatre #1 and it seats about 225-250. It's a good size for us at this point. We don't fill it but with the use of barriers and having people sit together there is a good vibe with the people that come.

Last week, Donovan and I went into #2 and just dreamt about what it would look like. For some reason it feels absolutely huge...almost like an impossibility. And then tonight happened.

The place was packed to the rafters. If you showed up any later than 30mins early, you would be hard pressed to find a seat. The energy was crazy. Any funny parts and the whole place erupted. I went out to go to the washroom and when I came back in I just stood there and looked up at all the people and felt like "This will be us...2x over on Sunday mornings"

And that is a crazy thought. To be honest is scared me a bit and at the same time. It just seems so impossible. How in the world would that ever happen in a city the size of Mission? It's definitely not going to happen because of how cool we are or the show that we put on because there just really isn't any of that. It's gotta be God. We've stated from the beginning that the only hope we have of seeing TXC go anywhere is if God steps in and makes His dream a reality. We're doing our best to listen to what he is telling us and be obedient but in the grand scheme of things, what we do won't get us anywhere. We need the supernatural. We are so freakin' small and incapable left to our own devices. Someone once told me this cheesy but true saying that says "God isn't interested in your abilities; He's interested in your availability." A lot of days all I've got is availability and I'm trying my best to offer that each and every day.

There's a part in Transformers where Sam and Mikaela just realized that his car was an autobot and she is hesitant to get in, now that she knows what it is. Sam looks at her and says"In 50 years when you are looking back on your life do you want to have to say that you wished you would have gotten into the car?" With that, she starts walking towards the car.

All I know is that I'm getting in the car. It scares the snot out of me at the best of times. Looking at 350 empty seats is one thing; looking at 350 full seats is another. How do we see 350+ movie goers become followers of Jesus? We're on the road to figuring that out!

R & R

2007-07-07T14:18:00.001-07:00

It's been so nice having this week off! It's true, I don't do a lot of physical labor and pretty much sit in a chair all day, whether it's on the computer or out for lunch/coffee with someone. However, my brain never shuts off. Whether it's dreaming about the future, writing a message, counseling someone, solving the newest problem to arise, or whatever else comes my way, generally church consumes my brain.

This week I set out to not think about it at all. I didn't fulfill that goal completely as I had a few thoughts while I was camping but for the most part my brain was shut off. I even left all my books that had to do with church at home.

The funny thing is that after a week of not thinking about anything, I'm itching to get back into it. I feel rested and refreshed and am looking forward to starting back up on Monday morning at the "office". I'm glad I chose to be away from TXC tomorrow as it gives me that anticipation to keep going strong the rest of the summer. The crew is going to do awesome and I can't wait to hear the stories of the day!

I'm back!

2007-07-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

Just got back this morning from camping and man does it feel good to be home! We had a great time. The weather was amazing and that always makes for a good trip. We realized something this year: Camping with two little kids isn't relaxing. It's fun, but it's not relaxing. I'm looking forward to the day that I can send them off on their bikes to play with friends while I sit down and read a good book or take a nap. Not much of either on this trip.

I also successfully stayed away from facebook while I was gone. I have the capability to do stuff on it through my phone but I resisted the temptation!

I had another realization (I realize this everyday, but this was the end of it!) while camping: I'm way to freakin' fat! I realized this when I was trying to put my socks on while sitting on the air bed and not being able to lean far enough forward to do so without passing out! So, as a public declaration on this blog, the beginning of my journey to being healthy (not just skinny) starts this Monday! I will weigh 190lbs by Christmas and be able to put my socks on without having a heart attack! I'm even going to put this in my events on Facebook so I remember!

Let the race to being able to put my socks on begin!

Gone camping

2007-07-01T17:57:00.001-07:00

Ah yes...the week I've been waiting for...my week of camping. We just finished getting back from Cultus Lake scouting out our campsite. For the last 3 years in a row we've got the same campsite and this year it's looking like we'll get it again. There is nothing that I love more than to just be out in the woods with a campfire roaring, big piece of meat on my plate that I just grilled over the fire, all the bugs and dirt that are in my big piece of meat...Nothing like it! This will be the first year we've gone having two kids that are walking around so it's gonna be an adventure. We're going to have 4 days of just our little family sitting around, doing nothing and having a blast together.

I'm also going to attempt something ridiculous. I'm going to be unplugging from the electronic world for the whole time. I'll check my phone every once in a while to see if the world is ending but other than that I'm going to detox. Yes I know...all you haters think I can't do it. We'll see.

This will be my first Sunday away from TXC since we started. We had an amazing day today and with the staff that I've got, I'm honestly not worried on single bit. They are incredible and will probably do better without me there! As much as I just really want to go so I can be with my friends, I think it's a good reminder for me that this thing doesn't depend on me. I'm not the hero. I think I already realize this but it'll be good to not be there and hear the great reports afterwards.

So this is me signing off for the week. Have fun and try not to get hit by a bus!

Don't forget to run!

2007-07-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Seth made a good point over on his blog. I think this can apply to the "emerging" church too. I don't really classify myself apart of the whole emerging thing and yet I'd consider ourselves a church that is emerging...continually growing and changing. One of the dangers with being a new church that is doing new things and not incorporating old traditions is that we can push against the old ways of doing things that we forget to run once we've got momentum. It's hard work when you're cultivating new ground...not everyone likes it. You have to push against old and comfortable ways of doing things. Often you have to question why people value what they value. Do we really have to sing Battle Hymn of the Republic to make you happy? Can't you sing that in the shower and get the same effect?

The rub comes when the momentum shows up and there is no longer any need to push anymore...people see the vision and are willing to run towards it with you...but you want to push some more...it's more fun. You've tasted the blood of seeing people squirm and you like it. Having most everyone on your side is too easy. There's a pride in knowing some people don't like you (yes...messed up but true for some). And without even realizing it, you become what you originally started pushing against...you just can't see it.

I don't want to get stuck pushing so hard and so long that I forget to run

...just words

2007-06-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

This really is a continuation from my last post, just a different thought.

Ever met a sales(wo)man that was trying to sell you something that they didn't believe in? They had never experienced the thing they were selling...there was no passion, no heart...just words. They were frauds.

I wonder how many times we, as Christians, are looked at the same way. We come across as trying to "sell" people something with our pitch of the 4 spiritual laws or the romans road or whatever else it is we've learned. But in the background, there's no passion, no heart...just words. In effect we've become Christian frauds.

I don't want that! I don't want to say I believe something but have the nagging thought in the back of my head that I don't really know what or why I believe it. I don't want to live my life not encountering God and having my life completely altered because of what he's done for me. I need this! I don't want to be a fake.

There has to be more than...just words.

My thoughts exactly

2007-06-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

I just read this post and it reaffirmed my thoughts about the church completely. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again.

People aren't interested in what your church isn't (in a prior post I said that our original web domain name was www.notyourgrandmaschurch.com - the Christian ghetto people thought it was hilarious (myself included) but those not in church thought it was lame) Just like you're not interested in what a car isn't that you are going to purchase. You want to know what it is!

So many times churches think that they are in competition with each other. They say "We're no like them...we're better! Come to our "church" instead! We're 'cool'" Meanwhile, buddy on the street walks by laughing and disgusted.

We strive to do our best because people are programmed to not gravitate towards awful. When I go to a restaurant, I expect to be greeted, treated warmly, asked how I am, seated at a nice seat, served good hot food - fast, not alienated and asked to leave immediately after we're done...etc. On any given Sunday, we don't want people to walk away thinking that was the worst thing they've ever been too. The people weren't friendly, the music sucked, the coffee was bad, the speaker talked forever and lost me in the first 5 mins, I had no idea where to go when I got inside, etc.

However, in our striving to do our best, we also do our best to not compare ourselves to other churches...because we're not them. We are who we are. In fact, we aren't even in competition with other churches in our area. We are in competition with the lake, sleeping in, hangovers, shopping, breakfast in bed, cartoons, etc. We don't advertise "we rock...everyone else sucks and we aren't like them". Because people aren't interested in what something isn't...they want to know who you are, why you're that way and what difference the "thing" you're "selling" will make in their lives.

The Bibles comes to life!

2007-06-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

I was just looking on my bookshelf and saw my message re:mix Bible sitting there. I've never really read the message as I would an other translation. Not sure why - maybe because when it first came out everyone was freaking out that it wasn't "accurate". I understand it's not a literal translation and shouldn't be used for studying so I have generally used it as a parallel source to get a different vibe for passages.

However, I picked it up just a few minutes ago and read Genesis 1 and 2...and it was incredible! I'm not sure why it's taken me this long to just read a full chapter but Peterson takes this chapter and makes it explode off the page. In the past I've read this as kind of a history lesson. But this time I saw God as an artist, standing there with a canvas in front of him...maybe a goofy Italian hat (don't know where this came from...is God Italian?), full of passion and creating a work of art that only He can create. The use of highly descriptive language and exclamation points made it just jump off the page!

So I think I may have stumbled onto another tool that is going to help me stay passionate in my faith. Check it out and see what you think. For those who have a hard time paying attention while reading the Bible, this may be a secret you need to stumble onto as well.

Seeing double

2007-06-26T15:47:00.001-07:00

For some strange reason everything's getting imported into facebook in two's...so I apologize if that irritates you as much as it does me. Not sure if there's a fix for this. You can see my facebook profile by clicking here. You will need a facebook profile yourself if you intend on seeing mine.

Success!

2007-06-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

Ah yes...success at last! It was a long night of frustration but with my determination mixed with my amazing facebook superpowers...just 15 hours later...i synced my blog with facebook. Now we'll just have to see if it will continue to work!

Syncronization

2007-06-25T23:34:00.001-07:00

Still can't seem to get this crazy thing to synchronize with with facebook. I'm one of those crazy people that can't sleep until I get the thing to work.

It's gonna be a long night...

Geeked up!

2007-06-25T16:10:00.001-07:00

Man I don't know what's wrong with me but I signed up for facebook and I love it. Not sure why...maybe I've got a little bit of a tendency to spy and like seeing what everyone else in the world is doing that I'm connected with. I think this may be really cool tool to use for connecting people in the church that may not normally be connected. Nonetheless, I'm getting all geeked up on it and this will be my first post that may potentially be posted simultaneously in my facebook profile as well.

What a day

2007-06-24T14:51:00.001-07:00

Man, today was good. There was just a good vibe in our Sunday Gathering today. People seemed excited to be there. Regulars were meeting guests. I saw more new faces being trained in different volunteer roles. The band was smokin'. It was just good to get the privilege to hang out with so many awesome people all under the same roof...And I'm not just saying that. We have such a diverse group of people that are connected in with our faith community and it makes for an amazing gathering once a week. What's more excited is that more and more people are beginning to understand what we are about. They understand that, even though we want to have a good time on Sundays, Sunday's are really about every other day of the week. They re-focus us on our mission of reconnecting people to Jesus. Inviting friends to our gathering is only a part of that mission. The bigger part is what happens with those friends during the rest of the week. We're seeing the shift take place.

Going into summer I'm excited! I'm excited to see new friendships formed. I'm excited to see more lives changed. I'm excited to see more people take more steps towards Jesus.

The thing about today is that it's not over! Now I'm headed out to a volunteer BBQ where I, once again, get to hang out with the raddest group of people ever. This group comprises almost 50% of our church right now. Insane. And the best part is that one of those volunteers donated steak!

I'm in!

It's over

2007-06-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

Ahhh...it feels like this weird funk I've been in the last couple of days has passed. I can't explain it when it comes...there's no root that I can really detect. Maybe it's spiritual. Maybe it's physical. Maybe it's emotional. Not really sure....I just know I'm glad when it's over. Even though it's cloudy out, it feels sunny.

It's worth it

2007-06-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

I went out for coffee with a guy tonight that came to our sunday gathering for the first time 3 weeks ago. I talked to him that first sunday and he said that out of all the churches he's visited since being back from leading YWAM in New Zealand, TXC was the first one where he hasn't felt awkward. And he's a Christian! I find that odd and sad that even Christians are feeling awkward going to church...imagine how someone who doesn't go to church feels?!

It's always refreshing to talk to someone who gets "it". "It" being our mission as the Church. That it's not about us (even though in my earlier post I expressed that I sometimes want everything to be about me - I try for that to be the exception rather than the rule). It's always easy to tell when people are only interested in consuming. This guy isn't a consumer. He's a contributer. You can tell by the hunger in his eyes. He wants to be a part of something that's gonna make a difference. Something that isn't just about feeling warm and fuzzy. Something that isn't about feeding fat Christians but seeing mature followers of Jesus that actually care about the world around them and are willing to do something about it.

I was telling someone else today that because we don't have an office to meet in and, more so, the fact that all our staff are volunteers (one day...soon...I hope), it's easy to get lonely and feel isolated during the week. I think even the other staff feel like that. We can encourage each other when we are connected. Share dreams more readily. Have some interaction about our real passion...the church.

And so it's conversations like these that amp me up. They remind me that what we are doing is making a difference. That people ARE being reconnected to Jesus (And lots of them are Christians!).

It's conversations like these that make it all worth it!

New life

2007-06-21T08:37:00.001-07:00

I read this this morning...

"People are ready to hear about new life when we start acting like new life is flowing through us."

After reading it I was really convicted...again. I'm not sure people would see new life today.

Have you ever felt like you just want to live your life the way that you want to live it? A life where no one else matters and I can just do what I want - where I can live in my reality and if others want to be in it great...if not...even better!

Sounds like "new life" hey? Paul talks about the war that goes on within. He calls it the war between flesh and spirit. I've been made new...I have new life. It's just that there is this nagging little (sometimes it feels HUGE!) side of me that still exists...it's in the background taunting...reminding...condemning. You just want to strangle the very life out of it but it seems to be impossible to get your hands on. Just when you think you've got it...something else is brought up. And you just want to SCREAM!

Living in that new life takes work. I would love for it to be one of those things that makes you "feel" good everyday - where you don't have to try...it just happens. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. Some days are better than others but most times it just takes good 'ol elbow grease. We can't earn this new life...but we have to be on guard so that our "flesh" doesn't creep in and steal it away. This makes me tired. Today I feel tired.

And yet...deep down inside...I feel this intense cry for that new life...for Jesus. To come and touch the driest parts of everything I am.

Breath that life into me.

Infuse me with Your joy.

New Life...it's coming.

The art of being

2007-06-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

The summer is an awesome time to decompress. We kill ourselves working day in and day out with hardly any room for rest. Even on our days off we're busy doing something. Taking the kids to a game. Fixing the house. Doing yard work. And we rarely take the time to just rest. We live in a crazy society that tells you that if you are not doing something, you are lazy and won't make it anywhere. So we fill our time. It gives us accomplishment. It gives us a sense that we are proving ourselves to the world that we are someone. We maybe even do this with God.

I know that most of us have to keep on working through the summer but what if we planned it so that our day off could be exactly that...a day off. If it's Saturday, go out to the lake. Make sure all the extra work is done and just relax. Just be.

Sometimes I think we can miss the fact that God loves us because we are his kids. Not because of what we do or how busy we are. It's possible to just "be" and have God still love us. In religious terms this is called the Sabbath. Bring it back into your life.

Stop.

Rest.

Live.

Be.

Thank you

2007-06-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

My dad never had it easy growing up but he faced the odds and became the man he is today. It would have been easy to quit but he kept on moving forward. He's taught me a lot over the years and here are some of the things that stand out today.

My dad taught me the importance of investing in my kids. I can remember way back when I was super young, my dad letting me stay up till 12. I specifically remember coloring in a sylvester and tweety coloring book.

My dad taught me the importance of putting my kids before myself. On too many occasions, my dad would come home from work exhausted. And yet, he would still come outside and play basketball or throw the baseball or football

My dad taught me the importance of pursuing my passion. He was always and is so passionate about singing. I remember putting on his self made mix tape of all the songs he used to sing for people and falling asleep to it. I'm more than sure his love for singing has something to do with my desire to plant a church.

My dad taught me how to love my wife. Despite all the crap that he went through in his life, he has still emerged as a man that loves my mom and is completely faithful to her. I'm sure there was more than one occasion that he could have thrown in the towel. My committment to Bek is for a lifetime and that's because of my dad.

My dad taught me to pursue Jesus. I can still remember various times in my life where I was watching my dad seek Jesus. Whether it was singing or praying for someone. He loves Jesus and that is something that I want to pass down to my kids.

Dad, thank you! I will do my best to help the legacy that you are leaving for us to live on!

Wired!

2007-06-13T23:25:00.003-07:00

Not too sure why, but every night that Bek's been away I've stayed up until 12 or 1am. I just get this extra boost of energy after the kids go to bed. I've been caught up with facebook. I swore I'd never join just cause it would take away so much of my time. That's what happens when you're stuck at home all day I guess.

I'm looking forward to heading up to whistler tomorrow for our lead team getaway. It's going to be good to just have some concentrated time spent with the people that blaze the trail and help to make TXC what it is. I need this but I imagine they need it even more than I do with working full time jobs. I anticipate that we're gonna come back well rested with some fresh ideas and dreams for the future!

Now...I will try and get some sleep!

Why?

2007-06-13T20:57:00.001-07:00

Two things have begun around the Richardson house hold in the last few weeks. Riley has gotten way more strong willed and just wants to do his own thing, like running away or doing things 5 more times after he's been told not too (typical 3 year old i guess). As well, he's started asking the question that every parent dreads "Why?" This question is being asked about everything! The worst part about it is the fact that he'll ask why after you've explained something to him the first time he asked why.

For example "Riley, stop standing on that chair while it's spinning around in circles".

"Why?"

"Because, you could fall off the chair and hurt yourself"

"Why?"

What do you say to that? I've found myself just saying the thing I swore I'd never say...

"Because I said so!"

It's got me to thinking though. I wonder how God feels when we just won't stop asking why?
God could explain the answer to us a million times and I'm sure we'd still ask why? Does he get to the point of wanting to say "Because I said so!"?

The thing with Riley is that I can see the danger he's going to get into if he continues down the path he's headed down. Our tables have razor sharp edges on them and the thought of him splitting his head open on it makes me sick. I don't want him to get hurt.

God sees into the future and knows that what we are doing is stupid. He sees the consequences and his heart is for us not to get hurt. It's just that we have this tendency to push it. To see how far we can actually get without getting burnt. And then when we get burnt, we ask "Why?"

I'm learning that I have to trust God. I just have to let go of my life. I've got a picture of where I want to be and what I want to do and how it should all turn out. But in the end, no matter how many times I ask why, God is still God - I'm not - and he has a dream for my life that is far beyond anything that i could ever come up with.

The adventure is almost over

2007-06-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well, single fatherhood is almost over for me (at least until Bek goes away on business again). It's been a good time. It's funny how much more cuddly the kids are when Bek's not around. They definitely need their dose of affection from both of us. It was good to just spend time with them for the last three days (including tomorrow). Perhaps I spend too much time with them, seeing I had a message to write and didn't get it done. I guess I had no other choice though. It was good for me to experience life with the kids and without Bek. I think that we are a pretty good team when it comes to the kids and taking care of the house. I know I should probably do more around the house but I do help. I'm not always a lazy bum. But with Bek being gone, I've had to do everything. It's felt like I've been cleaning up all day, every day. But more importantly, I've realized how much I need Bek around here. It sucks being by yourself with two kids all day long. I was so bored and I can definitely say that she is my best friend and I wouldn't want to spend time with anyone else if I had to choose. I'm looking forward to have someone to laugh with again. Tomorrow can't come soon enough!

Summer's coming...

2007-06-11T22:41:00.001-07:00

I totally feel this guy...seems we are in almost the same place with regards to church planting

Mr. Mom

2007-06-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

I never really realize how reliant I am on Bek to bring stability to our household until she's gone. For the next 3 days I'm home alone with the kids. It's not like it's the end of the world but once she's gone I realize all the little things that she does that I take for granted or just never know she does. You think guys should be tough and big and macho. They love to put on that face when other people are watching...take away their wife and their like lost puppies. I'm no different, however much I hate to admit it. It'll be a good three days just spent with my kids...once I figure out what I'm doing:)

Now to go figure out what we're going to eat for supper....ahhh yes! Nothing like pork and beans!

Don't blink!

2007-06-11T15:24:00.001-07:00

Seth posted this today...

"When you are sitting right on the edge of something daring and scary and creative and powerful and perhaps wonderful... and you blink and take a step back.

That's the moment. The moment between you and remarkable. Most people blink. Most people get stuck.

All the hard work and preparation and daring and luck is nothing compared with the ability to not blink."

I feel this way with TXC. I feel like we have made so much progress as of now. We are seeing things happen that only God can get the credit for. New people are testing the waters of our faith community each week. More and more people are getting connected into UnderCurrents and contributing their gifts in the different areas that are a part of what TXC is.

However, the temptation to blink and have a reality check looms in the background. The temptation to take a step back and ask "What on earth am I doing?!" Sometimes over thinking things can be one of my greatest enemies. I'm not advocating turning my brain off but sometimes God just isn't logical. He asks us to do things that don't make sense in our brains and if we try and analyze it and sort it out so it makes sense, we just end up giving up. We blink. I don't want to blink. I feel like we are on the edge of something great and the last thing we will do is blink.

Maybe God is calling you to something great too...whatever it may be. Maybe you are wondering if it's even from God at all. My encouragement to you is to not blink. Be obedient. Walk into the unknown. Ya, it scares the snot out of me too at the best of times. But there really is no better feeling than knowing that you are doing what God wants you to do, even if it doesn't make a lick of sense. Just take a step. You never know where it will lead to!

The crazy ones

2007-06-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

I read this on a blog today and it really resonated with me. This is how I feel sometimes...crazy.

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, quote them, disagree with them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing that you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Apple Computer Commercial in 1997
ht: Gary Lamb

The creative team

2007-06-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

One of my dreams is to have a creative team that maps out our series' and adds the creative elements to them. With our lead team mapping out the next year's worth of big ideas next week, they will have some huge lead time in prepping for a series that is 3-5 months away. My ideal is to have 2-3 teams of 2-4 people that plan out a series that is 3-5 months away.

For example, in September we would meet together one night and begin planning out the details for the series we will do around Christmas time. Initially this could mean that we meet a few more times so we can plan out Sept, Oct, and Nov and get ahead of the game.

In these teams would potentially be people that oversee the props, video, drama, visual art, digital art, music (i.e. when we used daughtry's "It's not over" for our marriage talk a few months back), object lessons/take aways, etc. The list could go on and on.

This is still a dream right now but I'd like to start moving towards making it a reality. Maybe we won't have enough people to make multiple teams so we start with one, I'm not sure. All I know is that I don't have enough creative energy to come up with things for every series. We are trying to plan our summer series (beatitudes) now and we're coming up blank. (If you have any creative ideas, let us know)

My hope is that come Sept, we can at least have one team off the ground. If this is you (the creative type) and you wanna use some of that energy to make our Sunday gatherings more creative, let me know and we'll try and get you connected in right away!

The getaway

2007-06-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

Next week our lead team and their spouses are headed up to whistler for a couple of days of rest, prayer, dreaming and planning. It's will have been five months since we launched and it's been a good push. We've experienced some really high high's and some really low low's and the adventure has just been amazing so far. At the same time, with the exception of me, all of our team work full time jobs, some even more than full time and other a full time job plus side jobs on the side. I think this weekend is much needed and many of us are feeling the burn and just need a day or two to unwind and dream. I couldn't imagine a better team to work with. Especially with the fact that they are volunteer but work as if they are full time. They give like they've got nothing to lose and just pour themselves in this church. We wouldn't be where we are without them.

During these couple of days we are going to be planning out the next years worth of big ideas (series), getting our calendars syncronized with coming events over the next year and dreaming up the goals we want to accomplish in the next year. It's going to be an exciting time as we're locked away in our old run down cabin in the woods.

So I want to encourage you to do something. If you are a part of TXC, the next time you see one of our volunteer lead team, let them know how much you appreciate them. Tell them something specific that they have done to impact you. It will make a world of difference!

An ark sounds good about now...

2007-06-07T10:22:00.001-07:00

The water is rising...but they keep saying that it's not going to flood. The water is supposedly supposed to basically reach the top of the dykes and stop rising...not too sure how I feel about trusting that prediction.

Here's my dilemma: Bek is going to Calgary on Monday for a few days..if it hasn't flooded by then. What we don't want to happen is for the river to flood while she's away in Calgary and be stuck on the other side. So there's a possibility that I may be staying with my parents with the kids if this sucker doesn't go down by Monday.

The risk with this is that I may also get stuck on the other side of the river if it floods while I'm over there. So, at this point, we're just playing it by ear. It rose 2.5 feet yestderday alone so it's getting nuts.

This could be one of the most interesting tests that our church will have to go through in it's infant life. I really have no idea how to pray about this. I don't want the flood to happen for obvious reasons and yet at the same time it's hard to pray that it won't happen...maybe lack of faith. Maybe just wanting God to be in control.

What's hard for me to see is the future. I can't see what the fallout would be if the river did flood. Could it be turned into something good? Could our faith community become even more influential because of it?

Tons of questions, very few answers at this point. The only option is to keep trusting that God knows what he's doing and wading forward

Fun times

2007-06-06T16:56:00.000-07:00

I was just sitting here thinking about Sunday and how good it felt afterwards (here's a few pictures). There wasn't anything really out of the normal. We switched our order up a bit and had some spontaneous "story time" instead of a message, but it wasn't exactly earth shattering (still really good though). There was just a vibe in the air like everyone wanted to be there. We started @ 9:30am instead of 10am and I wasn't sure if anyone would remember...sure enough I was wrong. It was the first Sunday of our existence that almost the whole congregation stood during worship. We have made a decision not to get hung up on whether people stand or not. However, we noticed that the vibe in the room changed when people changed their posture by standing. Sometimes I worship best when I'm sitting down but a lot of the times I sit because I'm just lazy.

Anyways, I don't want to get hung up on Sundays on this blog and pump it up like it's gonna be some rock show and declare that "you won't be disappointed!" Sunday is just a part of who we are but it was just good to walk away with the thought "That was fun!"

What on earth?!?!

2007-06-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

We just planted our church in January and we are seeing some great progress. People are getting connected to Jesus, we're seeing more people volunteer every week (approx. 30% right now) and things seem to be clicking right along. We're getting amped up for summer and the possibilities that it brings. But there's this one thing that is looming in the background...a flood.

Yes, that's right...a flood. I'm sure this has happened to other church plants somewhere in the world, but I'm sure it happens very seldom! Usually there are tons of other hurdles to overcome and trust me, we've probably got everyone of them right now. But a flood?!

On my way into Abbotsford for our lead team meeting the traffic was absolutely jammed and it hit me that this was getting very real (not that the traffic had anything to do with the flood). And then at our meeting I found out that if it's going to flood, it will more than likely happen by Monday. So we've got some isues!

If it does flood by monday, we probably won't be gathering because our theatre is possibly below the flood line. This means that if it does flood, we're gonna have to clear out all of our stuff that we have stored in there (approx. 35-40k worth of stuff). The reality is that there is nothing we can do about this. We just have to make the most of it and the reality is that it could be the best the thing that we could face. Sounds lame, I know, but it's possible.

If this becomes a reality we are going to keep moving forward. Because half our church is attended by people people from Mission and the other half from Abby, we will become 1 church in two locations. I know we talked about being multi-site within the next 5 years, but it may happen within the next 5 days!

Regardless of what happens, be praying for the future of our faith community. It's been the ride of my life up until now and there's no sign of it stopping any time soon!

The discipline of self-awareness

2007-06-04T21:03:00.001-07:00

Here are some of my highlights of the chapter 'The discipline of self-awareness' from "Practicing Greatness", the book we are going through as a lead team.

The discipline of self-awareness

The single most important piece of information a leaders possesses is self awareness...includes self-knowledge (knowing who you are), self-mindfulness (understanding your motives for doing what you do), self-vigilance (knowing what makes you tick and what ticks you off!), self-consciousness (knowing how you come across to others), and self-alertness (maintaining your emotional, physical and spiritual condition)

Great leaders who know themselves know what they bring to the table in terms of talent and abilities. They also know what they don't know...

Digging into who you are

Your family of origin.

Know where you came from. What were your relationships with your family like. How are those relationships affecting who you are today

Your blessing

Where you blessed as a child? Did your parents approve of you or were you always "not good enough". Many times if we weren't blessed, we will work our tails off in order to get the blessing of our peers. We may rebel against those who are in authority over us because of harbored anger we hold towards our parents.

Your Boundaries

Compliants

People walk all over them. They can't say no. They don't want to "hurt other's feelings". They tend to give in and seeth because of lost time and energy. People with a high need for approval from others are especially susceptible to compliance issues.

Avoidants

They shut the gate when they should let others in. Verbal gate shutting, creating emotional distance and even withdrawing. Leaders with this boundary problem usually end up lonely and isolated. this is a tough issue to overcome and usually requires some close friends who are willing to take the time necessary to bring the person out.

Controllers

Don't respect other's boundaries. Aggressive controllers bull their way around. They tell people how to think and live. Passive controllers use guilt and manipulation.

Non-responsives

Don't respond to others' needs or problems.

Personal markers that shape who a leader has become

The Call

Great leaders can detail their call. They know that they aren't doing this just because they want to. They feel it deep inside and can't escape it.

God-given talent

Great leaders understand that they have been called, not in spite of who they are but because of who they are. They understand their talents and they work within them. They understand where their gifts have come from, God.

The Dark side of being a leader

Compulsive leaders - need absolute order. Their organization reflects directly on them. Status conscious. Often angry, rebellious and critic of themselves and others.
Narcissistic Leaders - view anyone elses' achievements as threats. No accomplishment with fill their need for affirmation. They use other people to further their own ambitions.
Paranoid Leaders - Suspicious of others and are guarded in their relationships. They over react to criticism. Develop a type of "spy network" to gather info that helps them stay in power.
Codependent leaders - Have a schedule that is overloaded and out of control with other peoples' needs. They often minister to others in order to feed their own need to be needed. This can lead to burnout.
Passive-Aggressive leaders - resist others' demands by procrastinating and being stubborn and forgetful. Blame their failures on others' lack of support. Can be irritable and impatient, they create an unstable environment in which people are on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The price of lack of self awareness

Hollow leaders - no sense of self that works for the expectations of others. Just play the role of being a leader.
Self-absorbed leaders - Unaware of others' needs. It's all about them. How they are being treated, how they are affected, how they look and how they are responding. They minister to others to get their own needs met, still in search of self.

As I read this chapter, there was a lot of stuff that jumped out at me and challenged me to keep moving forward in who I am as a leader. There wasn't a lot of areas that I would say were totally me, but I could pull different elements from lots of them and apply them to my life. It was a good wake up call. The hard part is that this is only chapter 1!

Breath of fresh air

2007-06-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

Fewer things in life are as sweet as being forgiven when you really need it and don't deserve it...like a breath of fresh air when being suffocated.

I'm breathing deeply...

My little "sponge"

2007-06-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I can be a pretty careless dad. One of the things I find the hardest is watching what I say. In my eyes they aren't horrible, life ending things but when you hear them come out of a 3 year olds' mouth, it just doesn't sound right. So, here are the top 3 things I've effectively taught my 3 year old son Riley to say:

"Holy Crap!"

"Emma! Get lost!" (note of clarification, I don't tell his little sister to get lost. He just understands that you say the persons name first that you want to get lost!)

And finally, he said this not even 5 minutes ago,

"Emma! Seriously...you're driving me crazy!"

I'm not sure if this is normal for a 3 year old to be able to pick up on this stuff. Seems pretty complex to me...but then I'm biased towards my little genius.

Now...time to go teach some more English to my little sponge...

In pursuit of greatness

2007-05-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

Our lead team just starting reading the book "Practicing Greatness" together. Originally I was going to bring a "leadership thought" to each of our weekly meetings...that lasted a week. So because our team has had a total of one nugget of wisdom from me, I decided that it's probably a good idea to have someone that has more experience and insight than I do teach all of us, myself especially included. I've already read the book so now I'm going through it more detailed with the team and it's been great so far, even though we're only a week in. The thought of being great seems to be upside down to what the Bible talks about. But the premise is that great leaders are humble, effective and willing to serve. They don't pursue greatness to be seen as great in the world's eyes. Rather it's the road to living in a way that points others to Jesus. Great leaders leave people better off than they were before the leader entered their lives. Yikes! I'm glad this is a process because I need the time.

The one thought that stuck out so far is the opening line "Deliberate mediocrity is a sin". I couldn't agree more. My tendency is to think of mediocrity in terms of how we do things with the church but what about in my life? How is my leadership of my family doing? Am I always setting an example for my kids or do I let certain things slide when I'm tired? Am I loving Bek the way I should or just when I feel like it? Am I modeling a life that points to Jesus or points to me?

These are challenging questions the list could go on and on. And if the truth is to be told, there have been areas that have been mediocre and the fall out of those has been evident. It's been a good wake up call and I'm looking forward to continuing to learn how to practice greatness with the rest of our team

I'm sorry

2007-05-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

You know...some days I love technology...other days I hate it with a passion. Today I hate it. I have two blogs...one is public and it's just where I'm at in a public kind of way...if that makes any sense at all. The other is private...well at least that's what I thought it was. It's just kind of a journal of where I'm at personally...in private kind of way. I don't post in it near as much as I should but last week I posted something that was eating me up inside, thinking that the only person that could ever read it was me...the guy with the password that no one else has.

Well, today I found out that either I made a HUGE mistake and didn't enable the "private" feature or blogger screwed up (they let you choose if you want it private or public...I checked private when I made it) and won't let me make it private. Nonetheless, I posted something that had names of people, something that I would NEVER make public if I knew it was going public because that's just nasty and has huge potential to hurt the people involved...but this was public. And I can't get out of it. It was there for the whole world to see and I risked these people's relationship with me, God and each other. And to be honest, I feel sick. This isn't meant to invoke guilt or anything like that...it's a public confession so that for anyone that happened to read that post knows that I was wrong. And I do really believe that. I made some harsh judgments and stereotypes that a pastor just shouldn't make. I was just flat out wrong. The fact that I thought those things makes me angry.

So I know you're probably sick of hearing this, but I'm sorry. I really am. I know you've already forgiven me but I gotta get this out publicly. You know who you are. I'm sorry.

Should I be "getting" them?

2007-05-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

This is exactly where my train of thought has been the last few weeks. Check the post out here

It's time to grow...

2007-05-29T14:59:00.000-07:00

I just sat down and started to map out how we are going to achieve one of our more immediate dreams of growing to 1,000 people in the next 5 years. To be honest, when I thought about it prior to writing it down, it seems impossible. But now that I see how it could come together, it's definitely something that we can work towards in full confidence that, if this is what God wants for us and if he is the driving force behind it, we will see our dream become reality. Now I've got to sit down and map out how we will attain each of our stages in that growth. It's one thing to hope it will happen, it's another thing to plan for it to happen.

The interesting thing is that we were talking at our lead team meeting last night and Donovan brought up the fact the he really believes that we are going to have 50 new people become a part of our faith community this summer. If that was to happen, we'd be 1 year ahead of our yearly goals. And if you know anything about church life in the summer, that just doesn't happen, especially in a church our size. And because we are so new, we can be a little obscure to the people moving into town. But we've got this ridiculously insane idea that we will grow this summer.

It's funny...the church seems to be the only establishment that likes to justify why it shouldn't grow. Healthy things grow...maybe not over night, but they grow. We are working at getting healthier as the days go by and as we do that, I believe we'll grow. Not with people coming from other churches but with people that have either never been connected to Jesus or it's been a really long time since they've given him a chance.

It's out there...I know. But one of my motto's is "attempt to do things that are destined to fail if God doesn't step in".

We're praying like crazy that God steps in.

Refinement

2007-05-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

What I've realized over this last couple of weeks is that I don't know much. I've already made some mistakes in conversations with people and said some fairly stupid things that have put me right in the same category as every other pompous pharisee out there. I've realized that I'm impatient and I like to see people change very quickly. I think it gives me sense of accomplishment, like what I do as a pastor is justified because people's lives are being changed, even if it is with an iron fist. I'll give you a week to change instead of the lifetime that all the rest of us require. I tend to forget that there is a process...a type of walking towards Jesus. It's the process of becoming and that takes long for some than others.

What I'm not saying is that I'm good with everyone doing whatever they want, whenever they want. I can't be okay with that as a pastor because the Bible is my, and it should be our, compass for how we live our lives. I won't stop preaching the cross and that Jesus is the only person that can ever change our lives the way we need, and crave for, them to be changed.

What I am saying is that I need God to give me more patience with others. I need his mercy. I tend to be a very black and white person and all of you black and white types of people are cheering because you're the same way. But that isn't necessarily always a good thing. I'm not wanting that part of me to go away...I just need some balance. My tendency is to say "Choose God or don't...if you don't why are you coming to church and seeking God" In essence, if you don't want him...take a hike. That's a wrong attitude and that's something God's been showing me this last little while.

The reality is that we are all sitting in those seats on Sunday with things in our lives that aren't what God wants for us. So if we all took my challenge seriously, no one would be there next week. Yes, we all need to check ourselves to see where we are. But there's no need to bail on God because we aren't perfect. What I've failed to see is that someone can come to church, have stuff in their lives that is totally opposite to what God wants for them and still have this desire deep down inside of them to know who God is. It's that desire that I want to harness and be a catalyst to fan into flame.

I'm not saying it's okay to live your life however you want and I won't preach that. I'll preach the truth and it will more than likely hurt at times. But if that's what you choose to do, I want have the patience to walk with you and encourage that pursuit of God, having faith that, after I've preached the truth, He will reveal Himself to you and guide you to the place that you need to be in your life.

Please don't think I'm discouraged and down and out...I'm not. I'm just revealing a part of my journey of becoming who Jesus created me to be. Sure it's tough when I have to face who I really and not who I think I am. But it's good. The future is looking good and I know that I'm just being refined right now so that I'm more prepared for what is coming in the future. The ultimate conclusion of these last few weeks is that this is God's church. He is the one that will cause it to grow. We just have do whatever we know how to do to the best that we know how and to be willing to let him have us, change us and use us in the ways that he needs to in order to see this part of the world turned upside down

My hidden "agenda"

2007-05-23T22:36:00.001-07:00

The word agenda is such an evil word in church. It makes the hair on our necks stand on end. I've heard many say that you should just love those who don't follow Jesus. Be friends with them without any hidden agenda. Is that possible for a Christ follower to do?

Now let me point out that agenda may not be the best word for what I'm trying to describe. I just can't think of an appropriate substitute at the moment.

When we become followers of Jesus we share his mission of reconnecting people to God. We have that mission whether we like it or not. If we don't want it, we shouldn't be following Jesus. So when we become friends with someone who isn't a follower of Jesus, should we want them to know Jesus? If we don't, why is that?

I am in no way condoning anyone saying to someone "I'll only be your friend if you follow Jesus". That's just ridiculous. What I AM saying is that in that friendship I believe that there should be a genuine desire for me to want my friend to know Jesus. It doesn't mean I have to preach at them and tell them they're going to hell or even invite them to church. It means that I need to keep in mind that they are watching me to see if there is anything different about me. I say I believe something...now do I live it?

I'm not sure if that's an agenda or not. I just don't think that it should be possible for someone who is genuinely following Jesus to have a friendship with someone and never have the thought cross their mind that they would like their friend to follow Jesus too.

rockstar no more

2007-05-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

When we launched TXC, one of our goals was to remove every barrier that would offend someone who wasn't connected to Jesus, with the exception of the gospel. The challenge is that the gospel will offend. Gospel simply means "good news" and yet it is such a huge challenge to the way someone is currently living their life. Like we've been talking about on Sundays, it's upside down in comparison to how we want to live our lives.

I think I had a test from God a few weeks ago to see if I would go as far as removing the message of Jesus as a barrier in order to have someone come to our church. I passed the test and didn't go that far...I won't go that far. I can't. But it still sucks. Because I see how it IS good news and yet Paul says that the gospel is foolishness to those who don't believe. It seems like complete lunacy to believe in a God that doesn't exist. I want so badly for people to be able to see God for who he really is and not who we think he is because of our tainted view of him due to our past experiences. The problem is that I can't make people do anything. I can't reveal who God is to anyone, only the Holy Spirit can do that.

I've realized in a new and fresh way today how desperately I need God to be active in our church. We have to experience and encounter Him. We all come from such drastically different backgrounds that I can't be the rockstar that saves the day...I just can't. I need more than anything for God to change my life and the lives of those who are seeking Him.